Seiji Maehara

Seiji Maehara (2011)

Seiji Maehara ( Jap. 前原誠司 , Maehara Seiji ; * the 30th April 1962 in Sakyō-ku , Kyoto , Kyoto Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician ( Japan New Party → Minshu no Kaze → New Party Sakigake → Democratic Party → Democratic Progressive Party → independent → Party of Hope → Democratic People's Party ) and member of the Shūgiin (lower house) for the constituency of Kyōto-fu dai-2. He was foreign minister in the Kan cabinet from September 2010 to March 6, 2011 and party chairman of the Democrats from 2005 to 2006. In the Democratic (Progressive) Party stood behind him his own faction , the Maehara Group (also Maehara Edano Group; officially Ryōunkai ). From September 1, 2017 to October 30, 2017, he was also party leader of the Democratic Progressive Party .

life and career

Career

Maehara is a graduate of Kyōto University Law School and Matsushita Seikei Juku ( The Matsushita Institute of Government and Management ). In 1991 he was elected to the Prefectural Parliament of Kyoto for the Sakyō district. In 1992 he participated in the founding of the New Japan Party , for which he stood in the Shūgiin election in 1993 in the 1st constituency of Kyoto (5 seats) and was elected to the national parliament for the first time with the second highest percentage of votes behind Keiji Kokuta ( CPJ ). He was then re-elected six times in a row: in 1996 in the newly created proportional representation block of Kinki, since 2000 six times in the single constituency of Kyoto 2. During the party reshuffle in the 1990s, after the New Japan Party, he belonged to the Minshu no Kaze faction ("Wind of Democracy “), Then the New Sakigake Party and from 1996 until its dissolution in 2016 the Democratic Party.

After the landslide-like defeat of the Democrats in the Shūgiin election in 2005 , the then party chairman Katsuya Okada resigned. Maehara was elected as his successor with a narrow majority against Naoto Kan . During the Livedoor scandal surrounding the Internet company Livedoor , an email was published by the Democratic MP Hisayasu Nagata in which the already arrested Livedoor President Takafumi Horie ordered a cash payment to the son of the LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe . However, the mail turned out to be a forgery; Maehara resigned from the party leadership in April 2006. Under his successor Ichirō Ozawa Maehara returned in 2007 as deputy party chairman ( fuku-daihyō ) in the party executive committee.

minister

Maehara as Secretary of State at a press conference with Hillary Clinton in June 2010

In 2009 Maehara was appointed to his cabinet by the new Democratic Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama as Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Minister of State for Okinawa and the Northern Territories and Civil Protection. In this role he had to defend, among other things, the discontinuation of dams that had been planned for decades by the new government and the rehabilitation of the ailing Japan Airlines (JAL) in the form of the JAL Saisei Taskforce ( JAL 再生 タ ス ク フ ォ ー ス , dt. About "JAL -Regeneration task force "). He also announced in October 2009 that he wanted to expand Haneda Airport again into an international aviation hub in the Tokyo area, while at the same time retaining Narita as such. Hatoyama's successor Naoto Kan took him over to his cabinet in 2010 and appointed him foreign minister in a cabinet reshuffle in September 2010 as successor to Katsuya Okada . In March 2011 it became known that Maehara had received illegal donations and, as a result, announced his resignation from the post of Foreign Minister on March 6, 2011. The previous Secretary of State ("Vice Minister") in the Foreign Ministry, Takeaki Matsumoto , was appointed as his successor .

Under Naoto Kan's successor Yoshihiko Noda , he was chairman of the party's Political Research Council from 2011 to 2012 .

Again in the opposition

On September 1, 2017, Maehara was elected as their successor after the resignation of Minshinto party leader Renhō Murata in July of that year. He prevailed against Yukio Edano (332 points) with 502 of 834 points . On October 30, 2017, however, he resigned from his post in view of the defeat of the Kibō no Tō ( Kibō for short ) in the 2017 Shūgiin election . He had his party excluded from the elections with the expectation that the Kibo would do well, thus making it difficult for many previous Minshinto MPs, who consequently ran for this party, to return to parliament. On November 14, 2017, he himself joined the Kibō no Tō, which merged with the Minshintō to form the People's Democratic Party in May 2018 .

Web links

Commons : Seiji Maehara  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official Website (Japanese)
• Kantei : Brief CV (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Maehara announces resignation. (No longer available online.) In: 2yen . March 6, 2011, archived from the original on September 26, 2011 ; Retrieved March 6, 2011 . 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. ↑ DP taps Upper House member Kohei Otsuka as new party president. In: The Japan Times . October 31, 2017, accessed October 31, 2016 . 
3. ↑ 衆議院> 第 40 回 衆議院 議員 選 挙> 京都 府> 京都 1 区 . (No longer available online.) In: ザ ・ 選 挙 . JANJAN (Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures), November 6, 2008, formerly the original ; Retrieved December 2, 2009 (Japanese).  ( 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.    
4. ↑ Maehara eyes turning Haneda into 24-hour hub airport for international flights. In: The Japan Times . October 13, 2009, accessed December 3, 2009 . 
5. ↑ Chiba governor gets Narita reassurance. In: The Japan Times . October 15, 2009, accessed December 3, 2009 . 
6. ↑ Maehara announces resignation. (No longer available online.) In: 2yen . March 6, 2011, archived from the original on September 26, 2011 ; Retrieved March 6, 2011 . 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.  
7. ↑ Ex-top diplomat Maehara to lead struggling main opposition party. (No longer available online.) In: The Mainichi . September 1, 2017, archived from the original on September 1, 2017 ; accessed on October 31, 2017 (English). 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.  
8. ↑ 前 原 誠 司 代表 が 辞 任 、 新 代表 選出 の 両 院 議員 総 会 を ３１ 日 に 開 催 . Minshintō , October 30, 2017; accessed October 31, 2017 (Japanese). 
9. ↑ 前 原 誠 司 氏 、 希望 の 党 入党 を 了 承 . Sankei News , November 14, 2017, accessed November 17, 2017 (Japanese).