Sadatoshi Kumagai

Sadatoshi Kumagai ( Japanese 熊 谷 貞 俊 Kumagai Sadatoshi ; * January 1, 1945 ) is a Japanese scientist and politician. He ran for the post of governor of Osaka Prefecture in 2008 and was a member of the Shūgiin , the lower house, for the parties of Ichirō Ozawa ( Democratic Party , Kokumin no Seikatsu ga Daiichi , Nippon Mirai no Tō ) from 2009 to 2012 .

Until December 2007, Kumagai was Professor of Systems and Electric Power Engineering at Osaka University . He left university to run as a non-party member in the January 27, 2008 gubernatorial election. He was supported by the Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party and the New Japan Party. His main competitors in the election campaign were the star lawyer Tōru Hashimoto , who was supported by the ruling LDP party , and the CPJ- backed professor Shōji Umeda , after the incumbent governor Fusae Ōta had announced not to run again. In October 2007, an LDP candidate had already lost the mayoral election of Osaka to the opposition- backed Kunio Hiramatsu . In the nationwide election he was clearly defeated by Hashimoto, who received almost twice as many votes as he (Hashimoto 1,832,857, Kumagai 999,082, Umeda 518,563).

In the election on August 30, 2009 , Kumagai was elected to Shūgiin on the list of the Democratic Party in the Kinki proportional representation. In February 2011, Kumagai belonged to Minshutō Seiken Kōtai ni Sekinin o motsu Kai , a group of 16 Democratic MPs who threatened to vote against the budget laws of their own government because of the intra-party disciplinary proceedings against Ichirō Ozawa. In 2012 he followed Ozawa along with other opponents of the doubling of VAT from the Democratic Party, pursued by the party leadership, into the Kokumin no Seikatsu ga Daiichi, then the Nippon Mirai no Tō. In the Shūgiin election in 2012 , he again ran only through the proportional representation block: after twelve constituency candidates who shared first place on the list, he ran in 13th place; the Mirai no Tō won only one proportional representation in Kinki.

Web links

• Official Website (Japanese)
• Entry at Osaka University (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Japan Times, December 4, 2007: Osaka governor, hit by scandal, lack of backers, won't seek a third term
2. ↑ Yomiuri Shimbun , January 28, 2008: Hashimoto wins Osaka governorship / Kumagai's defeat seen blow to DPJ  ( 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.