Ryutaro Hashimoto

Ryutaro Hashimoto was a Japanese politician who served as the Prime Minister of Japan from 1996 to 1998. He was the leader of one of the largest factions within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) through most of the 1990s and remained a powerful back-room player in Japanese politics until scandal forced him to resign his leadership position in 2004. Disgraced, he chose not to stand in the general election of 2005, and effectively retired from politics. He died on 1 July 2006 at a Tokyo hospital. Hashimoto was born on 29 July 1937 in Sōja in Okayama Prefecture. His father, Ryogo Hashimoto, was a cabinet minister under Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. Following his father's lead, Ryutaro received his degree in political science from Keio University in 1960, and was elected to the House of Representatives of Japan in 1963. He moved through the ranks of the LDP over the next twenty years, landing a spot as Minister of Health and Welfare under premier Masayoshi Ohira in 1978, and in 1980 became the LDP's director of finance and public administration. He again became a cabinet minister in 1986 under Yasuhiro Nakasone, and in 1989 became secretary general of the LDP, the highest rank short of party president (if the LDP is in government, usually also the prime minister). Hashimoto became a key figure in the strong LDP faction founded by Kakuei Tanaka in the 1970s, which later fell into the hands of Noboru Takeshita, who then was tainted by the Recruit scandal of 1988. Hashimoto was also involved in the scandal, but managed to survive politically. He served as Minister of Finance (1989-1991 and 1998), Minister of International Trade and Industry (1994-1996), and Deputy Prime Minister (1995-1996) under different prime ministers. He was known for his combative bargaining stance in trade disputes with the United States, especially over automobiles and semiconductors. Hashimoto was elected prime minister of Japan on 11 January 1996, following the resignation of Tomiichi Murayama, the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Japan. Hashimoto was thus heir to an unwieldy governing coalition between the LDP and the Social Democrats that had held power since 1994. The new prime minister was viewed as a dynamic leader who would undertake much-needed economic and financial reforms in order to end a recession that had lingered for five years and showed few signs of lifting. Hashimoto called general elections for the House of Representatives in October 1996 in which the LDP gained almost 35 seats but still lacked a voting majority. His party was thus able to pass legislation only by means of ad hoc coalitions with the Social Democrats and smaller parties. Hashimoto's attempts to deregulate Japan's financial sector and place its floundering banks on a sounder footing were obstructed by his own party and made little progress. His initial popularity also faded quickly with his decision to raise consumption tax from 3% to 5%, an economically suicidal move blamed for prolonging the slump that had hit Japan in the early 1990s. A similar mistake was to approve government aid to mortgage companies already awash in bad loans. The upper house election of 1998, in which his party had hoped to do well, turned out to be disastrous, and Hashimoto resigned. But as an LDP insider of many decades' standing, he was put in charge of administrative reform for 16 months until 2001. He continued to head his powerful parliamentary faction - a key element in Japanese politics - until a $1m personal political fundraising scandal erupted in 2004. He chose not to stand again the following year. Hashimoto was married to Kumiko Hashimoto, with whom he had three children: Gaku, who followed his father's footsteps and became a politician, and two daughters. He was also an avid mountain climber and a smoker. He died of surgical complications and septic shock after undergoing abdominal surgery to remove his large intestine and a portion of the small. He was buried at Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.