is a Japanese

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

of the

New Komeito Party , formerly New Komeito and abbreviated NKP, is a conservative political party in Japan founded by lay members of the Buddhist Japanese new religious movement Soka Gakkai in 1964. Since 2012, it has served in government as the junior coalitio ...

, a member of the

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 ...

in the

Diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

(national legislature). He was born in

Tianjin, China Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popula ...

during the time part of China was under Japanese occupation. A graduate of the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1983. From August 1993 to April 1994, he served as Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in

Morihiro Hosokawa is a Japanese politician and Nobility, noble who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1993 to 1994, leading a coalition government which was the first non-Liberal Democratic Party (Japan), Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government of Japan since 1955 ...

's cabinet. Kanzaki was the Komeito's leader when the party entered into the coalition in October 1999 with the Liberal Democratic Party which it still maintains to this day. Kanzaki was a noted critic of Prime Minister

Yoshirō Mori is a former Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan between April 2000 and April 2001. He was unpopular in opinion polls during his time in office, and is known for making controversial statements, both during and after his ...

. Around the time some members of the LDP were voicing opposition to a local referendum which expressed opposition to a proposed dam project along the

Yoshino River The Yoshino River (吉野川 ''Yoshino-gawa'') is a river on the island of Shikoku, Japan. It is long and has a watershed of . It is the second longest river in Shikoku (slightly shorter than the Shimanto), and is the only river whose watershe ...

, Kanzaki insisted that the voters' decision should be respected fully. In 2001, he stated his support for allowing married couples to retain separate surnames.第151回国会 - 衆議院 - 本会議 - 2号　平成13年02月05日 He stepped down as party leader in 2006 and became an advisor instead. Although Komeito suffered a heavy blow in the 2009 general election along with its coalition partner, Kanzaki was able to secure a position in the Diet thanks to the Kyushu PR block results. He retired from the Diet in 2010 due to

kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

, but remained a permanent advisor to his party.

References

External links

Official website
in Japanese. 1943 births Living people Politicians from Tianjin People from Fukuoka University of Tokyo alumni Japanese prosecutors 20th-century Japanese lawyers Members of the House of Representatives (Japan) Government ministers of Japan New Komeito politicians Members of Sōka Gakkai {{Japan-politician-1940s-stub