Mikio Shimoji

Mikio Shimoji (Japanese下地 干 郎, Mikio Shimoji, born August 14, 1961 in Hirara (now Miyakojima ), Okinawa Prefecture) is a Japanese politician of the New People's Party. He was until 2012 MP for the first constituency Okinawa Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the national parliament, and in 2012 Minister of Civil Protection in the cabinet Noda.

Shimoji in 1984 graduated from the business school of Chuo Gakuin Daigaku and then worked in the private sector. In December 1995, one year after the introduction of Einmandatswahlkreise he became chairman of the LDP constituency association Okinawa 1 He was defeated in the general election in 1996, although in the constituency of the Taiichi Shiraho ( New Progressive Party, Ex - Kōmeitō ) and Saneyoshi Furuken ( JCP ), but moved about the newly introduced proportional representation in block Kyūshū in parliament. At the 2000 election, he gave up a constituency candidacy against Shiraho - the Kōmeitō had been re- established after the dissolution of the NFP and reigned now in coalition with the LDP - ran only on the proportional representation and was re-elected. For the LDP, he was Parliamentary Secretary ( Seimujikan / Daijinseimukan ) in the agency for the development of Okinawa (1998-1999 ) and the Ministry of Economy ( 2002).

Shimoji occurred in the 2003 election as an independent candidate in his constituency, without abandoning his party affiliation, but even without the formal support of his party. He defeated Shiraho and retired from the Parliament from. In 2005 he left the LDP completely and ran in the election again in 2005 as an independent, but now with the support of opposition parties and DPJ Shadaitō. With nearly 5,000 votes ahead of Shiraho Shimoji could win his first constituency. In the same year he founded with prefectural and municipal politicians from Okinawa, the party Sozo. In the national parliament, he joined the Group of the New People's Party, which had been founded by expelled from the LDP postal privatization opponents in 2005. In 2008 he left the Sozo and joined the New People's Party, in which he took over as chairman of the Political Committee ( 2009-2010 ), Parliamentary Officer ( since 2009), campaign manager (from 2010) and General Secretary (since 2010) management positions in the party leadership. In the 2009 election, he was clearly re-elected as MP for the New People's Party with DPJ support in the constituency.

In October 2012 Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda appointed him his third cabinet reshuffle in the Cabinet Office as Minister for Special Tasks ( civil protection ) and entrusted him with the responsibility for postal privatization. The former representative of the New People's Party in the cabinet, Tadahiro Matsushita, had hanged himself in September 2012.

2012 merged the prefecture of Okinawa Association of the New People's Party with the Sozo, and Shimoji again took over the party chairmanship of Sozo - in the legal sense Sozo is not a party but a " political association " (see Political parties in Japan # Legal regulations ).

In the 2012 election Shūgiin Shimoji lost the constituency to the former prefecture of Okinawa 1 MPs Konosuke Kokuba (LDP ) and retired again from the Parliament.