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Junichirō Koizumi

Junichiro Koizumi
小泉 純一郎
Koizumi in 2010
Koizumi in March 2010
56th Prime Minister of Japan
In office
April 26, 2001 – September 26, 2006
Monarch Akihito
Preceded by Yoshirō Mori
Succeeded by Shinzo Abe
Minister for Foreign Affairs
In office
January 26, 2002 – February 16, 2002
Preceded by Makiko Tanaka
Succeeded by Yoriko Kawaguchi
Minister of Health and Welfare
In office
November 7, 1996 – July 29, 1998
Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto
Preceded by Naoto Kan
Succeeded by Sohei Miyashita
In office
December 27, 1988 – August 10, 1989
Prime Minister
Preceded by Takao Fujimoto
Succeeded by Saburo Toida
Minister of Post and Telecommunications
In office
December 12, 1992 – July 20, 1993
Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa
Preceded by Hideo Watanabe
Succeeded by Kiichi Miyazawa
Member of the Japanese Parliament
for Kanagawa 11th district
In office
1996–2009
Preceded by New constituency
Succeeded by Shinjirō Koizumi
Majority 197,037 (73.16%)
Personal details
Born (1942-01-08) January 8, 1942 (age 75)
Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan
Political party Liberal Democratic Party
Spouse(s) Kayoko Miyamoto (m. 1978–82)
Children
Alma mater

Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎 Koizumi Jun'ichirō?) (born January 8, 1942) is a Japanese politician who was the 56th Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics when his term in parliament ended in 2009, and is currently the fifth longest serving PM in Japanese history.

Widely seen as a maverick leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), he became known as an economic reformer, focusing on Japan's government debt and the privatization of its postal service. In 2005, Koizumi led the LDP to win one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern Japanese history. Koizumi also attracted international attention through his deployment of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, and through his visits to Yasukuni Shrine that fueled diplomatic tensions with neighboring China and South Korea. He is a member of the Nippon Kaigi nationalist organization.

Although Koizumi maintained a low profile for several years after leaving office, he returned to national attention in 2013 as an advocate for abandoning nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which contrasted with the pro-nuclear views espoused by the LDP governments both during and after Koizumi's term in office.

Koizumi is a third-generation politician. His father, Jun'ya Koizumi, was director general of the Japan Defense Agency (now Minister of Defense) and a member of the House of Representatives. His grandfather, Koizumi Matajirō, called "Tattoo Minister" because of the big tattoo on his body, and the leader of Koizumi Gumi in Kanagawa (a big group of yakuza), was Minister of Posts and Telecommunications under Prime Ministers Hamaguchi and Wakatsuki and an early advocate of postal privatization. See Koizumi family.


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