Akira Nagatsuma

Akira Nagatsuma (Japanese长 妻 昭, Nagatsuma Akira, born June 14, 1960 in Nerima, Tokyo) is a Japanese politician, Member of the Shūgiin, the lower house, for the Democratic Party and was from September 2009 to September 2010 Minister of Health, Labour and Social Affairs, first in the cabinet Hatoyama, then in the Cabinet Kan.

Nagatsuma, a graduate of Keio University, worked after graduating first for Nippon Denki, then as a journalist for Nikkei Business, the publication of a subsidiary of Nihon Keizai Shimbun -sha. In the election of 1995 to Sangiin, the House of Lords, was a candidate for the Heisei Ishin Nagatsuma no Kai (平成維新の会, " Assembly for a Heisei Restoration" ), a reformist political group, on the eighth of proportional representation list. However, the Heisei Ishin no Kai got no seats. A year later he joined the Shūgiin - election in 1996 in the newly created single constituency Tokyo 10 for the Democratic Party, but received only the third highest share of the vote.

2000 Nagatsuma has now, first elected in the 7th constituency Tokyo, where he beat the former Minister Shigeru Kasuya (LDP ) into Shūgiin. It has since been confirmed as a deputy four times - 2005, only on the proportional representation block Tokyo.

Nagatsuma was instrumental in Parliament to denounce the scandal over lost pension records in which certain campaigning for Sangiin - election in 2007. For his discussion of pension policy, he also received the nickname "Mr. Pensions "(ミスター 年金, misutā nenkin ). In the same year he was out in the shadow cabinet of the Democratic Party as Shadow Minister for pension issues. After the electoral victory of the Democratic Party in 2009 Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama appointed him as Minister of Health, Labour and Social Affairs to the cabinet and gave him the responsibility for pension reform ( nenkin kaikaku ). In 2010, he was replaced by Prime Minister Naoto Kan by Ritsuo Hosokawa.