Naoto Khan

Naoto Kan (菅 直人, Kan Naoto^?, born October 10, 1946) is a Japanese politician, member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, and Prime Minister of Japan since June 8, 2010, when he replaced Yukio Hatoyama, until on September 2, 2011.

Biography

Early Years

He was born on October 10, 1946 in the city of Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture. The son of businessmen, Kan graduated in Applied Physics in 1970 from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and obtained a license to practice as a benrishi (patent agent) in 1971. In 1970, he married his cousin-sister Nobuko with whom he has Two sons Gentarō and Shinjirō, Gentarō is a civil rights activist who ran for the lower house in 2003 and 2005 but was defeated in both.

His hobbies include go, shogi and mahjong, during his student days his passion for mahjong was such that he developed a machine that automatically calculated the difficult mahjong score, even going so far as to patent said score machine in 1973.

On his personality, his wife Nobuko in her book "What the hell is going to change in Japan now that you are prime minister?" has come to question the her husband's ability to lead a country like Japan with solvency, saying that Naoto lacks the statesmanship profile the country needs and that he is just one of the "lightweights"; that abound in Japanese politics, Nobuko also points out that Naoto lacks taste in clothing and that he does not know how to cook even the simplest dish, because her mother and herself have "spoiled him for years";. That Naoto Kan lacks taste in clothing, a criticism that is hard to make since you rarely see a politician stripped of the "new samurai armor"; of the Japanese ruling class the black suit, the white shirt and the nondescript tie. The same is true of the rest of the criticism from his wife, that in general terms for all mortal men, the husband is never the perfect man.Kan is known as "Ira-Kan"; or & # 39; Fretful-Kan & # 39;, because of his bad temper.

Political career

After graduating from university, Kan worked four years as a patent agent, engaged in civic movements for years he worked on the election campaign of Fusae Ichikawa, a well-known Japanese women's rights activist.

After being defeated in 1976, 1977 and 1979, Kan finally won an MP seat for Tokyo's former 7th parliamentary constituency to the Diet in 1980 as a member of the Social Democratic Federation. Since then he has been re-elected several times and accumulates with the current ten consecutive terms as deputy (the general elections have been brought forward several times in that time); since the 1996 elections Kan has represented Tokyo's 18th parliamentary constituency, created by the 1994 electoral reform and occupying part of the former 7th ward.

Kan gained national popularity in 1996 when, as health and welfare minister, he admitted government responsibility for the spread of HIV-infected blood in the early 1980s, going so far as to apologize directly to the victims, this unprecedented action was applauded by both the media and the general public. At the time, Kan belonged to a small party that was part of the government, along with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

In 1998, his sexual scandal forced him not to assume the leadership of the new Democratic Party (PDJ). After Yukio Hatoyama's resignation as party leader, Kan took over. In July 2003, the PDJ and the Liberal Party, led by Ichiro Ozawa, agreed to form a unified opposition party for the general elections to be held in the fall of that year.

Naoto Kan's face was used as a campaign mark against Jun'ichirō Koizumi's LDP party. However, in 2004, Kan was accused of non-payment of pensions and forced to resign from the leadership of his party. On May 10, 2004, Kan officially announced his resignation.

Prime Minister

On June 4, 2010, he was elected Prime Minister of Japan to replace his predecessor Yukio Hatoyama (he had previously been elected leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, also replacing Hatoyama); Kan was elected by obtaining the votes of 313 deputies of the House of Representatives of Japan. He took office on June 8, 2010.

Naoto Kan and Obama at the G20 summit in Toronto, Canada, on 27 June 2010.

On July 11, 2010, the Democratic Party of Japan lost the elections to the House of Councilors of Japan (the upper house or Senate of the Japanese Parliament); this defeat complicates Kan's ability to carry out the bills he needs to govern, and also weakened him at the time and increased criticism from sectors that oppose him within his own party, to the point of having put at risk his victory in the internal election for leader of the Democratic Party that was to be held in September of that year, and that in the event of defeat would have meant that he would cease to be prime minister, although he immediately promised to fight to remain in office.

However, on September 14, 2010 Naoto Kan won his party's internal election and thus became Chairman of the Democratic Party of Japan; which allows him to continue being prime minister of Japan. Kan defeated Ichirō Ozawa, his only internal rival for the party leadership, scoring 721 points to Ozawa's 491, in a complex voting system in which the vote of one of the party's parliamentarians in the Japanese Parliament was worth two. points as opposed to the vote of the base militants and the party's regional legislators. It was precisely the vote of the grassroots militants that gave him victory, since the difference at the level of parliamentarians was very close.

His ability as prime minister was put to the test in the spring of 2011 by the North Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear accident. However, the majority perception is that his management of the crisis was a disaster, for which Kan had promised to resign after Parliament approved two essential laws for reconstruction; and indeed after that approval Kan submitted his resignation as prime minister and leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, for which he left power when his party elected a new leader who was almost immediately elected prime minister, which occurred in a few days. His successor was Yoshihiko Noda.