Akiko Santō

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Akiko Santō

Akiko Santō ( Japanese 山東 昭 子 , Santō Akiko ; born May 11, 1942 in Setagaya , Tokyo Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party and since August 1, 2019 President of Sangiin , the upper house of the national parliament . In the LDP, she led the Banchō Seisaku Kenkyūjo from 2015 to 2017 - she was the first woman to head an LDP faction - and she was a member of the Sangiin in her eighth term. From 2007 to 2010 she was Vice-President of the House of Lords, from 1990 to 1991 Minister of Science in the second Kaifu cabinet .

After graduating from Bunka Gakuin , an art school in Tokyo, and a career in radio, film and television, she ran for the LDP in 1974 in what was then the national constituency. With over 120,000 votes, she reached fifth place and was elected for the first time at the age of 32 as the youngest MP at the time. In 1978 she became parliamentary state secretary in the environmental agency during the cabinet of Masayoshi Ōhira . In the upper house, she was chairman of the foreign affairs and the environment committee in the 1980s. Since their third election in 1986 , Santō has run by proportional representation, which replaced the national constituency. In 1990, Santō was only the sixth woman to become a minister in a Japanese cabinet when she appointed Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu as head of the science and technology agency in a cabinet reshuffle .

She was voted out of office in 1992 , but returned to parliament in 1995 to replace the late Tetsuo Tanabe . In 1996 she resigned and tried in the October election in the newly created single constituency Kanagawa 6 a move to the lower house, but was subject to the Democrat Motohisa Ikeda and the NFP candidate Ryūshi Tsuchida .

In the 2001 election she ran again for the House of Lords. She received 147,568 of the newly introduced preferential votes and thus achieved 17th place on the LDP list, which, given the LDP election success (20 proportional representation mandates), was sufficient for another election. When in 2007 the LDP lost its status as the strongest party and the governing coalition lost its majority ( Nejire Kokkai ), Santō became Vice President of the House of Lords for three years - the first woman to hold the post. Most recently, Santō was elected as a member of parliament for the eighth time in the 2019 election with 133,645 votes (LDP list position 18) - more than any other member of the upper house.

On August 1, 2019, she was unanimously elected president of the Sangiin and is the second woman in this office after Chikage Ōgi .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 自民党 大 島 派 、 「山東 派」 に 初 の 女性 派閥 会長 . In: nikkei.com . April 2, 2015, Retrieved February 17, 2017 (Japanese).
  2. ↑ nhk.or.jp - 比例 自由 民主党 (Japanese), accessed August 5, 2019
  3. ↑ Tomohiro Osaki: Opposition lawmakers with severe disabilities make Upper House debut after steps taken toward creating a barrier-free diet. In: The Japan Times . August 1, 2019, accessed August 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Santō, Akiko
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 山東 昭 子 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Setagaya , Tokyo Prefecture