Jin Murai

Jin Murai, 2001

Jin Murai ( Japanese 村井 仁 , Murai Jin ; born March 28, 1937 in Kiso-Fukushima (today: Kiso ), Nagano Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician and from 2006 to 2010 non-party governor of Nagano Prefecture. He was previously a Shūgiin MP for the Liberal Democratic Party and as chairman of the National Public Security Commission Minister in the Koizumi cabinet .

Murai graduated from Tokyo University with a degree in economics in 1959 and then became a civil servant at MITI . In the meantime he worked for the Japanese embassies in Lagos and Canberra . In the Shūgiin election in 1986 he ran successfully for the LDP in the 4th constituency of Nagano for the Shūgiin and was then re-elected five times. From 1991 to 1992 he was Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance . In 1993 he switched to the Renewal Party and later to the New Progressive Party . After its dissolution, he returned to the LDP. Prime Minister Jun'ichirō Koizumi appointed him Chairman of the National Public Security Commission and Minister of State for Civil Protection in 2001.

In the Shūgiin election in 2005 Murai did not stand up to run as a non-party member in the gubernatorial election in Nagano in 2006. His candidacy against incumbent Yasuo Tanaka was supported by the then ruling parties LDP and Kōmeitō . He won the election with 612,725 votes to 534,229.

A controversial measure of his tenure was the lifting of a moratorium on dams that Tanaka had enacted. He also got rid of the demonstratively furnished glass office of his predecessor.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Tanaka, LDP veteran Murai vie to be Nagano governor. In: The Japan Times. July 21, 2006, accessed March 13, 2008 . 
2. ^ New Nagano governor gives a dam. In: The Japan Times. February 9, 2007, accessed March 12, 2008 . 

Web links

• Nagano Prefecture: Governor's Office (Japanese)
• Brief résumé on the website of the Japanese Cabinet (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
Yasuo Tanaka	Governor of Nagano 2006–2010	Shuichi Abe