Sadakazu Tanigaki
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| Secretary | Shinzo Abe |
| Internal Affairs | Heizo Takenaka |
| Justice | Seiken Sugiura |
| Foreign Affairs | Taro Aso |
| Finance | Sadakazu Tanigaki |
| Education | Kenji Kosaka |
| Health | Jiro Kawasaki |
| Agriculture | Shoichi Nakagawa |
| Economy | Toshihiro Nikai |
| Land | Kazuo Kitagawa |
| Environment | Yuriko Koike |
| Defense | Fukushiro Nukaga |
| Ministers of State | Tetsuo Kutsukake, Kaoru Yosano, Koki Chuma, Iwao Matsuda, Kuniko Inoguchi |
Sadakazu Tanigaki (谷垣 禎一 Tanigaki Sadakazu?, born March 7, 1945) is a Japanese politician who served as Minister of Finance in the cabinet of Junichiro Koizumi.
[edit] Early life
Tanigaki was born in Tokyo and attended Azabu High School. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo in 1974, and worked as a secretary for his father, who was Minister of Education. He went on to pass the Japanese bar examination in 1979, and he registered as an attorney in 1982 after completing his legal training.
[edit] Political career
Tanigaki was prepared for a legal career after close to ten years of study, but his father, who represented the second district in Kyoto, died in 1983 and he moved to Kyoto to run for his father's seat.
He briefly headed the Science and Technology Agency in 1997. Under Prime Minister Koizumi, he served in a number of positions, and ultimately as Minister of Finance from September 22, 2003 to September 26, 2006. Since 2002, Tanigaki has led a minor faction in the LDP, formerly part of the Kochikai faction, with 11 members in the lower house and 4 in the upper house.
Tanigaki declared his candidacy for the LDP presidency on July 28, 2006, but came in third place in a three-way race against Shinzo Abe and Taro Aso. Tanigaki was viewed as the "moderate" candidate in the race, mainly due to his foreign policy views: unlike Abe and Aso, he stated that he would not continue visits to Yasukuni Shrine if he becomes prime minister, which made him a more attractive candidate among LDP leaders who sought better relations with China and Korea. [1]
