JirÅ Kawasaki
Jiro Kawasaki (川 崎 二郎Japanese, Jiro Kawasaki, * November 15, 1947 in Iga, Mie Prefecture) is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP), Member of the Shūgiin, the lower house, and former Transport and Minister for Social Affairs. Within the party he belongs to the Koga faction.
Kawasaki worked after graduating from Keio University Matsushita Denki Sangyo first for (Panasonic). In the 1979 election he ran in Shūgiin fünfmandatigen constituency Mie 1 for the seat of his father who died last year, but only got the sixth highest share of the vote. In the election in 1980, he reached number three and moved into Shūgiin. He was voted out again in 1983 from 1986, a total of nine times re-elected, since 1996 in the newly created single constituency Mie 1; 1996 and 2009, however, he could claim a seat in Shūgiin only on the proportional representation block Tōkai.
In 1990, Kawasaki as Parliamentary Secretary ( seimujikan ) in the Ministry of Postal Services for the first time a government post, in the 1990s he took over, among others, as vice chairman of the Committee for Parliamentary Affairs and Chairman of the Committee on Regional Administration ( chiho Gyosei ) increasingly senior positions in the party and parliament. In 1998 he became the Cabinet Minister Obuchi first time and took over the Department of Transportation, as of 1999, the authority for the development of Hokkaido. During the " Katō Rebellion " in 2000, he was one of the supporters of Koichi Kato and abstained in the vote of no confidence against the party leader Prime Minister Mori Yoshirō. Moris successor Koizumi called Kawasaki in 2005 as Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare in his third cabinet. In this capacity he participated, among others, with the beef talks with the United States to lift the import ban on U.S. beef imposed by and under the BSE cases in 2003 and 2005 had only been temporarily suspended.
After the LDP losing power in 2009, the new party chairman Sadakazu Tanigaki called Kawasaki as Chairman of the Committee for Parliamentary Affairs in the party leadership. In September 2010, he was replaced by Ichirō Aisawa.
Family
Kawasaki's father was Hideshi LDP deputy of the post-war period and in the second Cabinet Minister Hatoyama health; his grandfather Katsu was before the Second World War deputy, his last Rikken Minseitō, and 1945 founding member of the Progressive Party of Japan.