Taizō Mikazuki


Taizo Mikazuki is a Japanese politician and the current governor of Shiga Prefecture, having been elected to the position in July 2014. He previously served in the House of Representatives in the Diet as a member of the Democratic Party of Japan.

Career

A native of Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, Mikazuki joined the West Japan Railway Company in 1994 after graduating from Hitotsubashi University's Faculty of Economics. From 1999 he was the chairman of the "young and women employees" committee of both the West Japan Railway Trade Union and Japan Railway Trade Unions Confederation. In 2002 he resigned from JR West to study at the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management.

National Diet

Mikazuki entered the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party of Japan after winning the Shiga No.3 District in the 2003 general election. At the 2005 general election he survived the "hurricane" victory by Junichiro Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, retaining his seat by a margin of 266 votes over LDP candidate Osamu Uno.
At the August 2009 election a landslide victory by the Democratic Party brought the party to power under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Mikazuki retained his seat, this time receiving 60.8% of the vote and defeating Uno by more than 49,000 votes. Mikazuki was made a Vice-Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in Hatoyama's cabinet and was promoted to Senior Vice-Minister when Naoto Kan became Prime Minister in June 2010. He lost his position in the cabinet in a September 2010 shuffle and was instead appointed deputy chairman of the party's national policy committee.
At the 2012 general election that returned the conservative Liberal Democratic Party to power, Mikazuki lost his district seat to LDP candidate Nobuhide Takamura but remained in the House by winning one of the Kinki Proportional Representation Block seats. He resigned from the Diet in May 2014 to contest the Shiga gubernatorial election in July. He was replaced in the Diet by DPJ member Tatsuo Kawabata, who had lost his Shiga No.4 District seat in the 2012 election but failed to secure a proportional block seat.

Governor of Shiga Prefecture

Mikazuki won the Shiga gubernatorial election in July 2014 with 46.3% of the vote, defeating the second-placed Takashi Koyari by 13,000 votes.