Shizuka Kamei
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Shizuka Kamei (亀井 静香 Kamei Shizuka?) (born November 1, 1936) is a Japanese politician.
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[edit] Early life
He was born in the city of Shobara in Hiroshima Prefecture into a poor family. He attended the Department of Economics at Tokyo University and worked his way through school in various jobs including singing in a cabaret.
Upon graduation in 1960 he entered Sumitomo Seika, and joined the National Police Agency in 1962. In 1972 he took charge of the agency's affairs concerning a number of high-profile cases, including the Red Army Asama Sansou incident, the Narita Airport Incident, and the Tel Aviv highjacking. Kamei is one of the few major politicians to oppose the death penalty. He also wrote a book, Shikei Haishi ron, about this.
[edit] Political career
In 1977 he left the agency and received 3.5 million yen in severence pay, which he used to run for the Diet in Hiroshima. He was elected in 1979 as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
In 1989 he formed the Freedom Reform Alliance, criticizing the LDP's system of factions and highly supported Shintaro Ishihara. He became Minister of Exports in 1994 and Minister of Construction in 1996. In 1998 he left the Mitsuka Faction and formed the "Nakayama-Kamei Group" with then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Taro Nakayama.
In 1999 he headed up the LDP's Policy Research Council and founded the Kamei Faction. In 2003, he unsuccessfully ran for Prime Minister against Prime Minsiter Junichiro Koizumi.
He opposed Koizumi's postal privatization plan and left the LDP in 2005, forming the Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) with four other Diet members. Despite facing popular businessman Takafumi Horie in the 2005 election, he won reelection for the tenth time.
[edit] Additionally...
Kamei is a six-level blackbelt in Aikido and enjoys golf and oil painting. He is sometimes humorously referred to as Shizuka chan (where chan is a title usually reserved for young girls) after a female character in the manga Doraemon who shares his personal name.
[edit] References
- Shikei Haishi Ron (死刑廃止論?), Shizuka Kamei, Publisher kadensha (花伝社?) ISBN 4-7634-0389-3, July 2002.
