Akira Gunji

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Akira Gunji

Akira Gunji ( Japanese 郡 司 彰 , Gunji Akira ; born December 11, 1949 in Mito , Ibaraki ) is a Japanese politician ( DPJ → DFP → non-party and non-party → non-party member of the KDP faction), who has been a senator for Ibaraki since 1998 Vice President of the Senate from 2016 to 2019. In the reformed government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda , he was Minister of Agriculture from June to December 2012 .

Life

Gunji finished his studies at Meiji Gakuin University prematurely and then worked for the company Isejin, an operator of hotels and wedding venues from Ibaraki. In 1989 he participated in the establishment of the Federation of Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Workers ( Zenkoku Nōdanrō ), one of the smaller member associations of Rengō . He was there first vice secretary ( shokijichō ), 1990 deputy chairman ( fuku-iinchō ) and 1992 secretary of the Ibaraki Prefectural Association. In 1993 he became a board member of Rengō Ibaraki.

In the Senate elections in 1998 Gunji ran for the newly "newly" founded, enlarged Democratic Party in Ibaraki (two senators per election) and was elected with the highest percentage of votes, confirmed in 2004 and 2010 in second place behind Hiroshi Okada ( Liberal Democratic Party ) . In the party, he joined the union- affiliated Yokomichi group of ex-socialists. In the 2000s he chaired several Senate committees, from 2004 to 2005 in the Environment Committee, in 2007 in the Committee on Administrative Supervision and from 2007 to 2009 in the Agriculture Committee.

After the Democratic Party won a majority in the House of Representatives in 2009 and the resulting takeover of government, Gunji became Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries alongside Masahiko Yamada (later replaced by Takashi Shinohara ) , where he remained until September 2010. In June 2012 he was appointed minister in the Noda government during a cabinet reshuffle, replacing Michihiko Kano , who had been in office since Naoto Kan's previous government.

In August 2013 Gunji against Toshimi Kitazawa from Nagano was elected chairman of the Senate parliamentary group of the Democratic Party with 33 to 24 votes, replacing Azuma Koshiishi , who became vice-president of the Senate after seven years at the head of the parliamentary group after the 2013 Senate elections . He also initially led the senators of the Democratic Progressive Party , which was founded in March 2016 .

In the Senate election in 2016 Gunji was elected in Ibaraki for the fourth time. He then became vice-president of the chamber himself after Koshiishi left parliament. Gunji left the party before the Democratic Progressive Party merged with the Party of Hope in 2018. In August 2019, Toshio Ogawa succeeded him as Vice President and Gunji joined the faction of the Constitutional Democratic Party .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 民主 参 院 会長 に 郡 司 氏 ／ 一 騎 打 ち で 北 沢 氏 制 す . In: Shikoku Shimbun . August 6, 2013, Retrieved October 13, 2018 (Japanese).
  2. ↑ 参 院 の 郡 司 氏 、 立 民 会 派 入 り 当面 は 入党 せ ず . In: Ibaraki Shimbun . August 2, 2019, Retrieved August 5, 2019 (Japanese).
personal data
SURNAME Gunji, Akira
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 郡 司 彰 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese senator
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Mito , Ibaraki