- Shizuka Kamei
(born
November 1 1936 ) is aJapan ese politician.Early life
He was born in the city of Shōbara in
Hiroshima Prefecture into a poor family. He attended the Department of Economics atTokyo 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 ArmyAsama-Sanso incident , theNarita Airport Incident, and theTel Aviv highjacking. Kamei is one of the few major politicians to oppose thedeath penalty . He also wrote a book, "Shikei Haishi ron", about this.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 Minister
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 businessmanTakafumi Horie in the 2005 election, he won reelection for the tenth time.Trivia
Kamei is a six-level blackbelt in
Aikido and enjoysgolf andoil 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 themanga Doraemon who shares his personal name.References
*Nihongo|"Shikei Haishi Ron"|死刑廃止論|, Shizuka Kamei, Publisher nihongo|"kadensha"|花伝社| ISBN 4-7634-0389-3, July 2002.
External links
* [http://www.kamei-shizuka.net/ Official website (Japanese)]
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