TOKYO: Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party decided to appoint KIHARA Seiji as new chairman of the ruling party’s Election Strategy Committee, at a meeting of its decision-making General Council on Tuesday.

His predecessor, KOIZUMI Shinjiro, resigned from the post to take the blame for the LDP’s crushing defeat in the Oct. 27 election for the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament.

The LDP picked Kihara, 54, who was acting election chief, to succeed Koizumi mainly to ensure smooth preparations for next summer’s elections for the Tokyo metropolitan assembly and the House of Councillors, the upper Diet chamber.

Also at the day’s meeting, the party decided to name former economic revitalization minister Yoshitaka Shindo as executive acting chairman of the Policy Research Council, former LDP General Council Chairman Tsutomu Sato as director-general of the Treasury Bureau and former education minister Hideki Niwa as acting chairman of the Diet Affairs Committee.

JIJI Press