Kōichi Katō

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Kōichi Katō ( Japanese 加藤 紘 一 , Katō Kōichi ; born June 17, 1939 in Tsuruoka , Yamagata Prefecture ; † September 9, 2016 in Tokyo Prefecture ) was a Japanese politician, Shūgiin MP of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Minister and Secretary General the LDP. Since 2005 he has not belonged to a faction within the party .

biography

Katō is the fifth eldest son of the Shūgiin MP and LDP official Katō Seizō . He graduated from the University of Tokyo and then became an officer in the State Department , for which he worked in Taipei and Washington, DC . In 1967 he received a Masters from Harvard University . After the death of his father in 1965, he ran successfully in the 1972 election in his constituency, which includes the city of Tsuruoka (until 1993 2nd constituency Yamagata, from 1996 initially 4th constituency, from 2003 3rd constituency), for the Shūgiin and entered the Ōhira faction, the Kōchikai .

Katō rose quickly in the party, in 1984 he was the head of the defense authority for the first time Minister in the Nakasone cabinet , he held the office until 1986. From 1991 to 1992 he was cabinet secretary in the Miyazawa cabinet . After the LDP had lost power in 1993 and regained it in 1994, Katō became chairman of the Political Research Council ( PARC ), and a year later the party's general secretary. He held this office until 1998, making it the LDP general secretary with the longest term since Tanaka Kakuei .

In 1998 Katō finally replaced ex-prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa in the faction chairmanship, who had led the Kōchikai for 12 years. Taku Yamasaki , Jun'ichirō Koizumi and he were known as the YKK and were seen as the young generation of leaders of the LDP who wanted to modernize the party and government. In 1997, 1998 (Koizumi) and 1999 (Katō and Yamasaki) they ran for chairmanship in vain. After the stroke of Keizo Obuchi in April 2000, a consensus-capable successor candidate was quickly sought and Yoshirō Mori, as the leader of the strongest faction, was appointed party chairman.

"Katō Rebellion"

Prime Minister Mori was a controversial figure in the LDP from the start. After Mori's “Land of the Gods” speech and the resulting heavy losses in the Shūgiin election , the party pushed for an early replacement, but Mori remained in office. In November, Mori's approval rating hit a record low of 18%. After Katō had secured the approval of the Yamasaki faction , he decided to exert a no-confidence vote against Mori in the Shūgiin, which mathematically had good prospects of success through the votes of the two factions and the votes of the opposition. However, LDP general secretary Hiromu Nonaka managed to force the majority of the members of the Kōchikai not to vote against Mori by threatening to expel the party. In view of the hopelessness of his advance, Katō and most of his supporters abstained from the vote on November 20, Mori remained Prime Minister. The result of this "Katō rebellion" ( 加藤 の 乱 , Katō no ran ) was the split of the Kōchikai and the discrediting of Yamasaki and Katō in the party, who had even threatened to cooperate with the opposition DPJ . The remaining YKK politician, Koizumi, replaced Mori as party leader and prime minister in April 2001.

Resignation and comeback

After a tax evasion scandal involving Katō's secretary in the spring of 2002, Katō first gave up the chairmanship of the faction, then his party membership and finally his mandate. In the November 2003 election, he ran as an independent candidate and was re-elected. He then returned to the LDP and initially (until September 2005) back to the Kōchikai . He called for reforms from his former ally Koizumi and criticized his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and the Iraqi deployment of the self-defense forces .

After Kato's house was set on fire in August 2006 by a right-wing nationalist activist, he warned that Japan could be caught in a dangerous wave of nationalism. He described Shinzō Abe , already traded as Koizumi successor, as "too naive" in this regard.

In the Shūgiin election in 2012 he lost the 3rd constituency of Yamagata with almost 1,500 votes behind to the independent Juichi Abe and was voted out of office after 13 consecutive victories.

Katō died on September 9, 2016 at the age of 77 from pneumonia in a hospital in Tokyo.

family

Katō's daughter Ayuko (LDP) won the third constituency of Yamagata in the 2014 Shūgiin election, narrowly against Juichi Abe.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BBC News, November 20, 2000: Rebels in Mori's party back down
  2. ↑ TIME asia, December 4, 2000: What rebellion?
  3. ↑ Japan Times, March 19: Kato resigns from LDP
  4. ↑ BBC News, April 8, 2002: Koizumi ally quits politics over scandal
  5. ↑ Japan Times, November 10, 2003: Kato comes back from scandal to victory
  6. ↑ Japan Times, January 3, 2004: Kato back - but he's not his old self
  7. ↑ Japan Times, August 20, 2006: Following arson attack, Kato warns of 'dangerous' nationalism emerging
  8. ↑ NHK : 加藤 紘 一 自民党 元 幹事 長 死去 ( Memento of the original from September 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Japanese), accessed September 10, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www3.nhk.or.jp
personal data
SURNAME Katō, Kōichi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 加藤 紘 一 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Tsuruoka , Yamagata Prefecture , Japan
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 2016
Place of death Tokyo prefecture