Tomiko Okazaki

Tomiko Okazaki (Japanese岡崎 トミ子, Okazaki Tomiko, born February 16, 1944 in Fukushima, Fukushima Prefecture) is a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party. She was 1990-2013 with a break deputies in both chambers of Parliament, 2010-2011 Minister Kan 's cabinet.

Career

Okazaki worked after graduating from high school in 1962, first as a presenter at Radio Fukushima, later to radio and television stations Tohoku Hoso (TBC). In 1990 Shūgiin election she became the candidate of the Socialist Party of Japan ( SPJ ) first elected in the first constituency Miyagi to parliament and re-elected in the 1993 election Shūgiin. In 1996, she was, together with Kunio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan the founding committee of the DPJ and was named after the founding deputy party leader, but lost in the election in the same year her parliamentary seat (after the electoral reform of 1994 is now in a Einmandatswahlkreis ).

In 1997, she successfully ran for the seat Sangiin the LDP politician Ichirō Ichikawa, who ran for the governorship of Miyagi. She was re-elected at the regular Sangiin - elections in 2001 and 2007, both times as a candidate with the most votes (with two to be awarded seats). From 2004 to 2005, she was again deputy party chairman. In 2007, she was introduced as "the next Minister of the Environment " in the shadow cabinet of the DPJ.

From September 2010 to January 2011 was Okazaki as chairman of the National Public Safety Commission and Minister of State for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, as well as address issues of fertility decline and gender justice minister in the Cabinet Kan.

In the 2013 election Sangiin Okazaki received in Miyagi just under 23% of the vote and failed with about 5,000 votes behind second place re-election. The two seats went to incumbents Jiro Aichi (LDP ) with 44.7 % and new entrants Masamune Wada of the Minna no Tō, who received 23.3 % of votes.

Scandals

On a trip to South Korea Okazaki said in 2003 at a demonstration with Korean comfort women of World War II ( " comfort women "). In Japan, it was then criticized for having taken part in an anti -Japanese demonstration and was as chairman of the DPJ " mobilization committee " (国民 运动 委员长, kokumin undo iinchō ) suspended.

When scandal failed to deposit in the state pension system in 2004, which affected numerous members of both major parties and to the resignation of party leader Kan and Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda (LDP ) had led, Okazaki contributions for one year and eleven months was known that had not been paid.