Satoshi Arai

Satoshi Arai

Satoshi Arai ( Japanese 荒 井 聰 , Arai Satoshi ; born May 27, 1946 in Hokkaidō ) is a Japanese politician of the Constitutional Democratic Party , member of the Shūgiin , the lower house, for the 3rd constituency of Hokkaidō and former minister.

Arai became a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture after graduating from Tokyo University . In 1980 he worked at the Japanese embassy in Sri Lanka during his temporary assignment to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs . In 1993 he finished his civil service career, joined the New Japan Party and was the first member of the national parliament in the 1993 Shūgiin election in the then 1st constituency of Hokkaidō (6 seats), the constituency of Nobutaka Machimura . He then belonged to the New Sakigake Party , the Democratic Party and, from 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party. After the electoral reform, Arai stepped in 1996 in the new constituency Hokkaidō 3 for re-election and was subject to Gaku Ishizaki ( LDP ). In 2000 Arai returned to Shūgiin, he was able to win his constituency again in 2003, and in 2005 he was only re-elected through the Hokkaidō proportional representation.

For the Democratic Party, in which he joined the Kan group , Arai belonged to two shadow cabinets, in 2003 as shadow secretary of state, in 2006 as "the next environment minister". In 2007, he resigned from his parliamentary seat in order to run the gubernatorial election in Hokkaidō against incumbent Harumi Takahashi , who was supported by the then nationally ruling parties LDP and Kōmeitō . Arai, which was supported in the election campaign by Democrats, Social Democrats and the New Daichi Party , received less than a million votes and was clearly defeated.

In the 2009 Shūgiin election , Arai won his constituency back and in October 2009 he became Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's special advisor for "National Strategy" ( kokka senryaku ). After Hatoyama's resignation in June 2010, his successor appointed Naoto Kan Arai to his cabinet as Minister of State for “National Strategy”, Economic and Financial Policy, Consumers and Food Safety .

Shortly after taking office, the opposition called for resignation against Arai because he had registered an acquaintance's house as the main office of his campaign organization and had booked around ten million yen as office expenses in his 2007 political donation report. In total, he had claimed over 40 million yen (about 360,000 euros) over a period of six years as expenses for the office. Arai stated that the house was mainly used to receive mail, that the expenses recorded were normal office expenses and that no rent was paid to the friend. Arai asked the party to investigate his donation reports; this claims that it was normal office expenses. Arai remained a minister until a cabinet reshuffle in September 2010. From 2010 to 2012 he was chairman of the cabinet committee in Shūgiin, then chairman of the civil protection committee.

In the Shūgiin election in 2012 , Arai lost his constituency by more than 20,000 votes behind to a liberal democratic newcomer, the former prefectural member of parliament Hirohisa Takagi , but was able to win one of the two proportional representation mandates of the Democrats in Hokkaidō. He then took over the chairmanship of the Shūgiin special committee for Okinawa and the "Northern Territories" until 2013 , which he had already led from 2004 to 2005. In the 2014 election , Arai shortened the gap to Takagi to around 7,000 votes and again won one of the two democratic proportional representation seats in Hokkaidō. For the 2017 election , Arai joined the Constitutional Democratic Party and won constituency 3 with around 23,000 votes / nine percentage points ahead of Takagi - clear enough that Takagi also missed an LDP proportional representation.

Web links

• Official Website (Japanese)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Arai defends 'office expenses'. In: The Japan Times . June 10, 2010, accessed June 10, 2010 . 
2. ↑ Tokyo condo was puppet office / New minister Arai reported friend's address as an office for 7 years. (No longer available online.) In: The Daily Yomiuri . June 10, 2010, formerly in the original ; accessed on June 10, 2010 (English).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
3. ↑ Yomiuri Shimbun : Election results 2014 House of Representatives, majority election, 3rd constituency Hokkaidō and proportional representation, Block Hokkaidō, Democratic Party
4. ↑ Yomiuri Shimbun : Election results 2017 House of Representatives, majority election, 3rd constituency of Hokkaidō