Gen Nakatani

Gen Nakatani (2019)

Gen Nakatani ( Japanese 中 谷 元 , Nakatani Gen ; born October 14, 1957 in the city of Kōchi , Kōchi Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician ( LDP , Tanigaki Group ), member of the House of Representatives , the lower house of the National Assembly , for the 1st constituency his home prefecture and former Minister of Defense (2001-02 and 2014-16).

Nakatani graduated from the private Tosa High School in Kōchi and then the Bōei Daigakkō , the defense academy in Yokosuka . He was then four years a soldier in the ground self-defense forces , which he left with the rank of lieutenant ( 2 等 陸 尉 , ni-tō rikui ). In 1985 he became Secretary to Defense Minister Kōichi Katō , then Minister of Social Affairs Isamu Imai , and in 1986 Minister of Finance Kiichi Miyazawa .

In the Shūgiin election in 1990 Nakatani ran for the LDP in what was then the constituency of Kōchi, which, as zenken-ku, comprised the entire prefecture and elected five MPs. He received the second highest share of the vote behind the socialist Masanori Gotō . In 1993 he was re-elected with the highest percentage of votes. After the electoral reform, he ran from 1996 in the new single-mandate constituency Kōchi 2, which he won six times in a row, since a reorganization of the constituencies in Kōchi for the 2014 election in constituency 1, which he won in 2014 and 2017 with an absolute majority.

In the LDP, Nakatani joined the Kōchikai , the faction of his former employers Miyazawa and Katō. In 1995 ( Murayama cabinet ) he became parliamentary state secretary ( seimujikan ) for the Kokudo-chō , in the same year for the first time chairman of the LDP prefecture association Kōchi, 1997 ( Hashimoto II cabinet ) parliamentary state secretary in the Ministry of Post , 2000 ( Mori II cabinet ) in the self-government ministry . In 2001 Jun'ichirō Koizumi appointed him as head of the defense authority in his first cabinet and thus for the first time as minister. In a cabinet reshuffle in 2002, he was replaced by Shigeru Ishiba .

In December 2014, when Shinzō Abe took up his third term as Prime Minister, Nakatani replaced Akinori Eto , who was damaged by a donation scandal, as the first new minister in Abe's third cabinet, and was again Minister of Defense in the Defense Ministry, which was created in 2007 by upgrading the Defense Agency. In the cabinet, he also took over responsibility for security legislation (anzen hoshō hōsei) , which is intended to enable collective defense in particular under certain circumstances, i.e. military missions abroad to protect allies ( i.e. especially the USA), even if Japan itself was not attacked directly becomes. In August 2016, Tomomi Inada replaced him in a cabinet reshuffle .

Web links

• Shūgiin , MP: 中 谷 元君
• Kantei / Cabinet, Minister in the third cabinet Abe: Nakatani Gen (Japanese, English )
• Official Website (Japanese)