is a Japanese politician who was
Director General of the Japan Defense Agency (now
Japan Ministry of Defense) in the first cabinet of former
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Junichiro Koizumi in 2001-2002 and was appointed as the Minister of Defense by former Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe
Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍 晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 20 ...
in 2014.
Nakatani was born in
Kōchi and attended the
National Defense Academy of Japan
National may refer to:
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* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
. He served for four years as a commissioned officer in the
Japan Ground Self-Defense Force
The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force ( ja, 陸上自衛隊, Rikujō Jieitai), , also referred to as the Japanese Army, is the land warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Created on July 1, 1954, it is the largest of the three service b ...
(20th Infantry Regiment and Airborne Training Unit).
He first ran for elected office as a
Liberal Democratic Party candidate in the
1990 general election and won one of five seats representing
Kōchi Prefecture, and held this seat in the
1993 general election. Following electoral reform in 1994 that divided Kōchi into three single-member districts, he successfully contested the
Kōchi 2nd district in the
1996 general election and held this seat until the
2014 general election, when he switched to the
Kōchi 1st district; the abolishment of the
Kōchi 3rd district required the Liberal Democratic Party's Kōchi members to switch seats so that they could all remain in office.
Yuji Yamamoto, who had held the 3rd district since 1996, switched to the 2nd district. Meanwhile
Teru Fukui, who had held the 1st district since 1996, switched to the
Shikoku proportional representation block.
Nakatani supported
Koichi Kato and
Taku Yamasaki
is a Japanese politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1972 to 2003 and from 2005 to 2009. He directed the Director General of the Japan Defense Agency for two months in 1989, and served as Minister of Construction from 1991 ...
's no-confidence motion against Prime Minister
Yoshiro Mori in 2000, and was appointed to head the Japan Defense Agency under Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi in the following year.
Notes
References
1957 births
Japan Ground Self-Defense Force personnel
Japanese defense ministers
Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians
Living people
Members of the House of Representatives (Japan)
National Defense Academy of Japan alumni
21st-century Japanese politicians
People from Kōchi, Kōchi
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