Yasuo Ichikawa

Yasuo Ichikawa (Jap.一 川 保 夫, Yasuo Ichikawa, born February 6, 1942 in Komatsu, Ishikawa Prefecture) is a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party ( Ozawa group). He was a deputy in the Parliament Ishikawa Prefecture and in both chambers of the national Parliament, 2011-2012 Minister of Defence in the Cabinet.

Ichikawa, the son of a member of parliament Prefecture, graduated from Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Mie and officer was then in the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1990 he ended his official career and followed his father into Parliament of Ishikawa Prefecture, where he spent two terms of office for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP ). In 1993, he joined the party of renewal Ichirō Ozawa and Tsutomu Hata. In 1996 Shūgiin - election, he ran for the New Progressive Party in the new Einmandatswahlkreis Ishikawa 2, the constituency of Yoshirō Mori. Although he lost, but was elected on the proportional representation block Hokuruku - Shin'etsu, 2000 for the Liberal Party and re-elected in 2003 for the Democratic Party. In 2005 he was defeated in the constituency for the fourth time Yoshirō Mori and missed, given the overall poor performance of the Democrats and the re-election in the block.

In the 2007 election Sangiin Ichikawa ran in Ishikawa for the succession of Tetsuo Kutsukake (formerly Liberal Democrat, now a Democrat ), who decided not to run again. Ichikawa won with about four thousand votes ahead of the former prefecture MPs Tomitaro Yata (LDP ) and moved so that for six years in a Sangiin. There he was, among others, Chairman of the Disaster Committee. In the Democratic Party, he leads since 2010 the Prefecture Ishikawa Association.

In September 2011, the third Democratic Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda appointed him as defense minister in his cabinet. Accession to office he described himself as an amateur in security issues, which is a testament to the functioning of the constitutionally enshrined civilian control of the Self-Defense Forces; the opposition responded with calls for his resignation. In November, he stayed away from the lobby of the Imperial Court for the Bhutanese royal couple to collect political donations at a party event. After several controversial remarks made in November and December 2011 in connection with the U.S. military presence in Okinawa, the Sangiin adopted a non-legally binding to resign " Rügeresolution " ( monseki ketsugi ) in December 2012. In January 2012, he was replaced in a cabinet reshuffle by Naoki Tanaka ( also Ozawa group). Shortly thereafter, he became Secretary General of the Sangiin faction of the Democratic Party.

In the 2013 election Sangiin Ichikawa was defeated, the Liberal Democrats Shuji Yamada.