Akihiro Ota

Akihiro Ōta (Japanese太 田 昭 宏; Ōta Akihiro; born October 6, 1945 in Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture) is a Japanese politician of the Kōmeitō, House of Commons Member of Parliament for the electoral district of Tokyo and 12 since 2012 Agriculture and Minister of Transport. He was from 2006 to 2009 chairman of the party Kōmeitō.

Ōta castle 1971 his studies at the University of Kyoto and was then a journalist with the Komei Shimbun, the party newspaper of the Kōmeitō. In the 1990 election, he ran Shūgiin first time, but was selected in the ninth constituency Tokyo until three years later. After the dissolution of Kōmeitō he belonged to Shinshinto, 1994, he was Deputy Secretary-General. After the end of Shinshinto he belonged to the ( new ) Kōmeitō, for which he was re-elected in the 12th electoral district Tokyo from 2000 with the support of Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP) three times.

In September 2006, Ōta was elected unopposed as party leader of the Kōmeitō. One of his key demands to the LDP coalition partner and the new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the after omission from future visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. The already required by its predecessor Koizumi change the pacifist post-war constitution, he refused strictly and also demanded an acceleration of domestic reform program.

Even before the Sangiin - election in 2007, who taught the ruling coalition a clear defeat, Ōta affirm that they would continue the coalition. One of the campaign issues was a scandal to recover lost records of pension rights; In this context, Ōta was assigned to the former Social Affairs Ministers Kan (DPJ ), Koizumi (LDP ) and Sakaguchi ( Kōmeitō ) the responsibility.

In the general election in 2009, in which the Komeito had to take heavy losses, Ōta lost not only his constituency to the Democrat Ai Aoki, but also his seat in Parliament because he was not protected by a list place in a ratio district. He subsequently went back from the party chairmanship. In the general election in 2012 he won the 12th constituency Tokyo confidently with 51.0 % of the vote and returned to the House of Commons. In the following, re- LDP coalition Kōmeitō he was land, infrastructure and transport minister under Prime Minister Abe Shinzō.