Yoshimi Watanabe quits as leader of Your Party over cash scandal

A senior Japanese politician has announced his resignation as his party's leader, despite insisting that he spent an undeclared US$8 million loan not on illicit political purposes, but on personal items, supposedly including an ornamental rake.

Yoshimi Watanabe, 62, the latest to be felled by a cash scandal, said he was stepping down from guiding the small but influential Your Party to minimise damage from the incident.

Watanabe's fall could be a blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plans to remake Japan's Self Defence Forces as a modern military.

The conservative premier has spoken repeatedly of his desire to revise the country's United States-imposed pacifist constitution introduced after the second world war.

Under Watanabe, Your Party has expressed support for the agenda, offering at least a veneer of support to Abe's drive while his junior coalition partner, the secular Buddhist New Komeito, has proved reluctant.

Watanabe accepted the money from the chairman of a big cosmetics company. Japanese law requires that all political donations be made public.