Shinji Tarutoko

Shinji Tarutoko (Japanese樽 床 伸 二, Tarutoko Shinji, born August 6, 1959 in Shimane Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party (DPJ ) and a former deputy in the Shūgiin, the lower house, the 12 constituency Osaka, and 2012 for several months Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications. Within the party he belongs to Noda group.

Tarutoko, a graduate of the University of Osaka Seikei Juku and Matsushita (English Matsushita Institute of Government and Management), a candidate for the first time as an independent candidate in the 1990 election for the Shūgiin, but was in the 7th constituency Osaka ( 3 seats), only about 35 thousand voices. In the 1993 election Shūgiin he landed as a candidate of the New Japan Party in third place and was thus chosen for the first time. Since the electoral reform of 1994 he appeared in the 12th constituency Osaka, which he won four times. Only in 2005 he was defeated Tomokatsu Kitagawa (LDP ) and missed with a poor constituency result, the re-election by proportional representation Kinki block.

After the failure of the anti - LDP coalition in 1994 Tarutoko first belonged to the New Progressive Party, then to Morihiro Hosokawa From Five by and finally to the Democratic Party, where he was also chairman of the Mobilization Committee and Deputy General Secretary. In 2001 he was a member as Shadow Minister for the MLIT member of the "Next Cabinet" of the party leader Yukio Hatoyama. In Shūgiin he belonged to, among others, the Committee for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

2009 won the Democratic Party's Shūgiin - election in a landslide, and Tarutoko returned to parliament. He was then Chairman of the Environment Committee of the Shūgiin. In 2010 he stood as a candidate in the election of the party leaders against Naoto Kan to succeed Yukio Hatoyama, who resigned. He was supported by parts of the Ozawa group of the outgoing Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, but was defeated in the vote among the DPJ lawmakers from both chambers.

In the third reshuffle by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on October 1, 2012 he was Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications.

In the 2012 election Shūgiin Tarutoko was in the constituency Osaka 12 with 25.5 % of the vote only third behind Tomokatsu Kitagawa (LDP ) and Ryoma Ishii ( Minna no Tō ); on the DPJ proportional representation list in Kinki (which consisted only of constituency candidates, all on the list 1st place), he was so eleventh and therefore also missed the re-election by proportional representation block clear.