is a politician from

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan who represents the

Japanese Communist Party The is a left-wing to far-left political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party advocates the establishment of a democr ...

. He has served one term in the

Hyogo Prefectural Assembly The is the prefectural parliament of Hyogo Prefecture. The assembly's 87 members are elected every four years in 40 districts by single non-transferable vote. Nine of the electoral districts correspond with the wards of Kobe city and the rema ...

and contested several local and national elections.

Early life and career

Kaneda was born in Kobe, Japan on 25 August 1965. After graduating high school he attended

Nihon Fukushi University is a private university with its main campus at Mihama, Aichi, and other campuses at Nagoya and Handa, also in Aichi Prefecture, Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is ...

and completed a bachelor's degree in social welfare. After graduation he was employed at the Hyogo Medical Practitioners Association, where he was involved in getting

cataract surgery Cataract surgery, also called lens replacement surgery, is the removal of the natural lens of the eye (also called "crystalline lens") that has developed an opacification, which is referred to as a cataract, and its replacement with an intraocu ...

added as a procedure covered by the prefecture's health insurance.

Political career

Kaneda first developed an interest in politics when a charter bus carrying Nihon Fukushi University students plunged into the Sai River in January 1985, killing the two drivers, a teacher and 22 first-year students. The cause of the accident was determined as driver fatigue due to being overworked. Kaneda, who was also a first-year student at the time, felt anger at a society that prioritised profit over human life, and felt it necessary to value the dignity of human life. In April 1999 Kaneda successfully contested the three-seat district of Nishi-ku in the

as a candidate for the

. Whilst in the assembly he left his mark on the prefecture's healthcare system, identifying problems within the system for subsidising healthcare for the elderly, which the prefecture was in the process of reviewing at the time. He sought a second term in the April 2003 election but finished fourth in the race for three seats, falling 3,647 votes behind fellow incumbent Yoshihide Sugio. During his political career Kaneda has become the face of the Communist Party within Hyogo Prefecture. He has contested a total of four prefectural assembly elections, two national

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

elections and one gubernatorial election. He also contested the July 2013

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, ...

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

, where he finished fourth out of seven candidates in the

Hyogo at-large district The is a constituency that represents Hyogo Prefecture in the House of Councillors in the Diet of Japan. It currently has five Councillors in the 242-member house, but this representation will increase to six by July 2019. Outline The constituenc ...

, having received 9.6% of the vote. Kanada will contest the district for a second time at the July 2016 election. A 2015 revision of the ''Public Officers Election Law'' has increased the representation of the Hyogo district from four to Councillors to six, meaning three will be elected in 2016, compared to two in 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaneda, Mineo Members of the Hyogo Prefectural Assembly Living people 1965 births Japanese Communist Party politicians Politicians from Hyōgo Prefecture