Tōru Hashimoto

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Tōru Hashimoto (2013)

Tōru Hashimoto ( Japanese 橋下 徹 , Hashimoto Tōru ; born June 29, 1969 in Shibuya , Tokyo Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician (non-party → Nippon- / Ōsaka Ishin → Ishin → Nippon- / Ōsaka Ishin ). From 2008 to 2011 he was governor of the prefecture (- fu ) Osaka , then until 2015 mayor of the [independent] city (- shi ) Osaka . During his reign he founded and led the regional party Ōsaka Ishin no Kai , with which he and his supporters later advanced into national politics and tried to destabilize the party system that had been established in the late 1990s / early 2000s. At times he was also chairman of the national party associated with the Ishin no Kai (2012-2014 Nippon Ishin no Kai and for a short time 2015 2015saka Ishin no Kai), but has not held any national office or mandate.

Life

Hashimoto graduated from Waseda University in 1994, and was registered as a lawyer in 1996. In 1997 he opened the Hashimoto Law Office in Osaka. After several appearances on regional television, he also appeared nationwide for the first time in 2004 as a television lawyer at Nippon Television .

After Hashimoto had secured the support of the LDP and Kōmeitō , he ran as a non- party to succeed the governor of Osaka, Fusae Ōta , who did not run again. With 1,800,000 votes, he clearly won the election on January 27, 2008; its main rival candidate, the DPJ / SDP / PNP -backed Sadatoshi Kumagai received just under a million votes. Hashimoto was the youngest governor in the country when he took office and only the fourth governor under 40.

At the beginning of his term in office, Hashimoto tried above all to curb the growth of the prefecture's debts (around 5 trillion yen , around 30 billion euros) through a radical austerity program and to avert impending insolvency. The highest savings are to be achieved in administration and personnel, and the subsidies to the municipalities are also to be drastically reduced. Many public and non-profit organizations in the prefecture also face drastic cuts in grants. Hashimoto had to give up his campaign promise not to issue new bonds under pressure from the prefectural parliament and senior officials. In July 2008 the budget for the fiscal year 2008 was approved by the prefectural parliament. The expenditures showed a decrease of ten percent compared to the previous year, which is mainly due to cuts in the salaries of public employees.

On April 19, 2010, he founded the Osaka Ishin no Kai regional party , which became the strongest party in the Osaka prefectural parliament and the councils of the cities of Osaka and Sakai in the April 2011 elections .

In October 2011, Hashimoto resigned as governor to run the mayoral election of Osaka City on November 27, 2011 against incumbent Kunio Hiramatsu , an opponent of Hashimoto's administrative reform plans to dissolve the cities of Osaka and Sakai. Hashimoto won the election against incumbent Hiramatsu, who was explicitly or implicitly supported by all established parties, with a high voter turnout with around 751 to 523 thousand votes. At the same time, Hashimoto's favorite successor, Ishin-no-Kai General Secretary Ichirō Matsui , also won the gubernatorial election in Osaka .

In September 2012 he founded the Nippon Ishin no Kai to get into national politics, which was joined by the Taiyō no Tō under Shintarō Ishihara in November , with whom he jointly chaired. In May 2013 he came under strong criticism, also from the part of the South Korean government , when he described the forced prostitutes known as “ comfort women ” as “necessary” for military discipline during the Second World War . In September 2014, the Nippon Ishin no Kai split off from the Jisedai no Tō with the Yui no Tō in the Ishin no Tō , whereupon Hashimoto left the party in autumn 2015 and founded a new Nippon Ishin no Kai (initially Ōsaka Ishin no Kai ) . After the referendum to dissolve the city of Osaka into " special districts " of Osaka prefecture, one of his main goals, he withdrew from the mayor's office for the 2015 election and handed over the chairmanship to the previous general secretary (and Hashimoto's successor as governor) Ichirō Matsui .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eric Johnston: Hashimoto elected governor of Osaka. In: The Japan Times Online. January 28, 2008, accessed May 6, 2008 .
  2. ↑ Eric Johnston: Osaka governor sounds fiscal alarm. In: The Japan Times. February 7, 2008, accessed June 5, 2008 .
  3. ↑ Eric Johnston: Hashimoto's cost-cutting plans under fire. In: The Japan Times. March 28, 2008, accessed June 5, 2008 .
  4. ^ Hashimoto admits need for Osaka bond issue. In: Daily Yomiuri Online. June 2, 2008, archived from the original on June 2, 2008 ; accessed on June 5, 2008 .
  5. ↑ Eric Johnston: Osaka governor rests but rough air on radar. In: The Japan Times. August 6, 2008, accessed November 20, 2008 .
  6. ↑ Gov. Hashimoto creates local party. In: The Japan Times Online. April 20, 2010, accessed April 29, 2010 .
  7. ↑ Hashimoto, Osaka face watershed poll. Unprecedented double vote for governor, mayor tough to predict. In: The Japan Times . October 22, 2011, accessed October 25, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Mayor justifies forced prostitution. In: The world. May 14, 2013, accessed May 14, 2013 .
  9. ↑ Eric Johnston: Hashimoto takes flak for sex slave rationale. In: The Japan Times. May 14, 2013, accessed May 14, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Hashimoto, Tōru
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 橋下 徹 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1969
PLACE OF BIRTH Shibuya , Tokyo Prefecture , Japan