Upper house OKs ex-internal minister Takenaka's resignation

Japan Policy & Politics, Oct 2, 2006

TOKYO, Sept. 28 Kyodo

The House of Councillors approved in a plenary session on Thursday the resignation from the house of former Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Heizo Takenaka.

Takenaka, 55, the key architect of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's structural reforms, abruptly announced Sept. 15 that he would quit the upper house.

The only Cabinet member who has served throughout Koizumi's five years and five months in office, Takenaka said at the time that he would resign as a lawmaker Tuesday, when Koizumi left office.

Takenaka, then an economics professor at Keio University, was handpicked by Koizumi to join his Cabinet in 2001 as economic and fiscal policy minister and doubled as financial services minister from 2002. He was made internal affairs and communications minister in October 2005. He was elected to the upper house in 2004.

Shinobu Kandori, a professional wrestler who is next on the party's proportional-representation list for the 2004 upper house election, will serve the remainder of Takenaka's six-year term through 2010.