Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Isshu Sugawara speaks during a press conference at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo on September 11, 2019.— AFP/VNA Photo

TOKYO — Japan's trade minister Isshu Sugawara resigned on Friday amid allegations that his office offered condolence money and gifts to supporters in violation of the country's election law.

The abrupt resignation is a setback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who gave the ministerial post to Sugawara in a Cabinet reshuffle just over a month ago. Opposition parties had piled pressure on Sugawara to step down if the allegations are true.

Abe told reporters he accepted Sugawara's resignation offer, adding that Hiroshi Kajiyama, a former minister in charge of regional revitalisation, will replace Sugawara as trade minister.

"The responsibility lies with me for having appointed (Sugawara)," the prime minister said.

Sugawara, 57, had been put in charge of Japan's trade and industrial policies at a time of heightened bilateral tensions with South Korea over Tokyo's tighter export controls.

Sugawara is the ninth Cabinet minister to step down since Abe returned to power in 2012 and follows the resignation in April of gaffe-prone Yoshitaka Sakurada from the post of Olympics minister.

"I apologise for stepping down at a time when there is so much that needs to be done," Sugawara told reporters.

His stint was cut short after the Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine reported in its latest edition on Thursday that Sugawara's secretary had offered 20,000 yen (US$180) in condolence money to the bereaved family of a supporter in his Tokyo constituency in mid-October.

His office also sent funeral flowers to multiple bereaved families this year, according to the magazine.

Japan's public offices election law bans politicians from making donations to voters in their home constituencies. Politicians are allowed to offer money personally at ceremonies such as weddings and funerals.

Sugawara admitted that both he and his secretary had handed out condolence money, but that he was still confirming whether the act violated the election law.

He said he decided to resign because he did not want the scandal to prevent the smooth running of the government.

"I do not want the Diet session to be held up, to be unable to deliberate on legislation because of me," he told reporters. "Nor do I want to hold up economic and industrial policy, nor the government as a whole."

Sugawara had come under fire following another Shukan Bunshun story reporting that he had handed out melons and crabs to local supporters, prompting calls by opposition parties for him to give an explanation to the Diet.

He belongs to Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and is currently serving his sixth term as a lawmaker in the House of Representatives.

The new trade minister Kajiyama, 64, assumes the same post briefly held by his father Seiroku Kajiyama, a prominent lawmaker who also served as chief Cabinet secretary and justice minister in the 1990s.

The younger Kajiyama left a job at the now-defunct Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation to work under his father as a secretary, eventually taking on his constituency in Ibaraki Prefecture. He is now in his seventh term in the House of Representatives.

He served as a senior vice land minister in 2012. — KYODO