Mikio Shimoji

Mikio Shimoji, 2010

Mikio Shimoji ( Japanese 下地 幹 郎 , Shimoji Mikio ; born August 14, 1961 in Hirara (today: Miyakojima ), Okinawa Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician ( Liberal Democratic Party ( Hashimoto faction ) → independent → Sōzō → New People's Party → Ishin no Tō → Ōsaka Ishin no Kai → Nippon Ishin no Kai ) and member of the House of Representatives , the lower house of the national parliament , for the Kyūshū proportional representation . In 2012 he was Minister for Civil Protection in the Noda cabinet .

Shimoji graduated from the business administration faculty of Chūō Gakuin Daigaku in 1984 and then worked in the private sector. In December 1995, one year after the introduction of the single- mandate constituencies, he became chairman of the LDP constituency association Okinawa 1. He was defeated in the 1996 general election in the constituency of the Taiichi Shiraho ( New Progressive Party , Ex- Kōmeitō ) and Saneyoshi Furuken ( CPJ ), but moved on the newly introduced proportional representation in the Kyūshū bloc in parliament. In the 2000 election he renounced a constituency candidacy against Shiraho - the Kōmeitō had been re-established after the dissolution of the NFP and now governed in coalition with the LDP -, ran only through proportional representation and was re-elected. For the LDP he was Parliamentary State Secretary ( Seimujikan / Daijinseimukan ) in the Okinawa Development Authority (1998–1999) and in the Ministry of Economic Affairs (2002).

Shimoji ran in the 2003 election as an independent in his constituency, without giving up his party membership, but also without the formal support of his party. He was defeated by Shiraho and left parliament. In 2005 he left the LDP entirely and ran again in the 2005 election as an independent, but now with the support of the opposition parties DPJ and Shadaitō . With almost 5,000 votes ahead of Shiraho, Shimoji was able to win his constituency for the first time. In the same year he founded the Sōzō party with prefectural and local politicians from Okinawa - in the legal sense a "political association" (seiji dantai) , not a party (see Political Parties in Japan # Legal Regulations ); double membership is therefore no problem. In the national parliament he joined the faction of the New People's Party, which was founded in 2005 by opponents of post-privatization who had been driven out of the LDP. In 2008 he left the Sōzō and joined the New People's Party, where he assumed leadership roles in the party executive as chairman of the political committee (2009-2010), parliamentary director (since 2009), head of election campaign (from 2010) and general secretary (since 2010). In the 2009 election he was clearly re-elected in the constituency as a member of the New People's Party with DPJ support.

In October 2012, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda appointed him minister at the Cabinet Office for Special Tasks (civil protection) during his third cabinet reshuffle and also made him responsible for post-privatization. The previous representative of the New People's Party in the cabinet, Tadahiro Matsushita , hanged himself in September 2012.

In 2012, the Okinawa Prefectural Association of the New People's Party merged with the Sōzō, and Shimoji again took over the party chairmanship from Sōzō.

In the Shūgiin election in 2012 , Shimoji lost the constituency of Okinawa 1 to the former prefectural member of parliament Kōnosuke Kokuba (LDP) and resigned from parliament. He ran unsuccessfully in the gubernatorial election in Okinawa in November 2014 . In December 2014 he applied for the Ishin no Tō again in the constituency of Okinawa 1 for the House of Representatives and, although he landed in third place behind candidates from the KPJ and LDP, he won the last seat of the Ishin as the third-best constituency loser among five double candidates in the first place on the list no Tō for proportional representation in the Kyūshū block. In the 2017 House of Representatives election he lost Okinawa 1 again for the Nippon Ishin no Kai, but won the party's only seat in the Kyūshū block as the best loser among four candidates on the Ishin list number 1.

Web links

• Official Website (Japanese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 政党 そ う ぞ う 、 国民 新 県 連 と 一 本 化 新 代表 に 下地 氏 . (No longer available online.) In: Ryūkyū Shimpō . August 12, 2012, archived from the original on August 15, 2012 ; Retrieved October 8, 2012 (Japanese). 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.  
2. ↑ Yomiuri Shimbun : Shūgiin 2014 election results, majority vote, Okinawa ( memento of the original from June 19, 2017 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. 
3. ^ Yomiuri Shimbun : election results Shūgiin 2014, proportional representation, Kyūshū, Ishin
4. ↑ Yomiuri Shimbun : Shūgiin 2017 election results, majority vote, Okinawa 1 ( Memento of the original from November 16, 2017 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. & Proportional representation, Kyūshū, Ishin ( Memento of the original dated November 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.