TÅru Hashimoto
Tōru Hashimoto (Japanese桥下 彻, Hashimoto Tōru, born June 29, 1969 in Shibuya, Tokyo Prefecture) is a Japanese lawyer, politician, elected mayor of the city of Osaka and chairman of the regional party Osaka Ishin no Kai, as well as co-chair of Nippon Ishin no Kai. From 2008 to 2011 he was Governor of Osaka Prefecture.
Hashimoto graduated in 1994 from his studies at Waseda University, he was registered as an attorney in 1996. In 1997 he opened the Law Office Hashimoto in Osaka. After several appearances on regional television he appeared from 2004 as a television lawyer at Nippon Television for the first time in the country.
After Hashimoto had assured the support of the LDP and Kōmeitō, he ran as a non-party to succeed the Governor of Osaka, Fusae Ōta, which did not compete again. With 1,800,000 votes, he decided the election 27 January 2008 clearly for themselves; his main rival candidate, the DPJ / SDP / PNP -based Sadatoshi Kumagai only received almost one million votes. Hashimoto was the nation's youngest governor when he took office and only the fourth governor under 40.
At the beginning of his tenure, Hashimoto sought all about, curb the growth of the debt of the prefecture ( around 5 trillion yen, about 30 billion euros ) by a radical austerity program and the looming insolvency. The highest savings are thus to be achieved with the administration and staff, and the grant to the municipalities to be cut drastically. Many public and non-profit organizations in the prefecture must also expect drastic cuts in grants. His campaign promise not to issue any new bonds, Hashimoto had to give up already under pressure from the Prefecture of Parliament and senior official. In July 2008, the budget for the fiscal year 2008 was approved by Parliament Prefecture. Expenditures reported on the previous year due to a decrease by ten percent, the back is mainly due to reductions in salaries for public employees.
On 19 April 2010 he founded the Osaka Ishin no Kai regional party, the largest party in the Parliament of Osaka Prefecture and the councils of the cities of Osaka and Sakai was at the elections in April 2011.
In October 2011, Hashimoto resigned as governor to join the mayoral election in the city of Osaka 27 November 2011 against incumbent Kunio Hiramatsu, an opponent of Hashimoto's administrative reform plans for the resolution of the cities Osaka and Sakai. Hashimoto won the election against incumbent Hiramatsu, who was supported explicitly or implicitly, by all established parties, with high voter turnout with around 751 to 523 thousand votes. At the same time Hashimoto won favorite successor, Ishin -no- Kai -General Ichirō Matsui also the gubernatorial election in Osaka.
In September 2012, he founded the Nippon Ishin no Kai to enter national politics, in November, the Taiyo no Tō joined under Shintaro Ishihara with whom he holds the joint chairmanship.
On April 2013 he came under strong criticism, even the South Korean government, as he called the " comfort women " forced into prostitution mentioned during the Second World War as "necessary " for military discipline.