20 Facts About Ryutaro Hashimoto

Ryutaro Hashimoto was a Japanese politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1996 to 1998.

Ryutaro Hashimoto resigned after the LDP lost its majority in the 1998 upper house election, but remained leader of his faction until a scandal in 2004.

Ryutaro Hashimoto was born on 29 July 1937, in Soja in Okayama Prefecture.

Ryutaro Hashimoto's father, Ryogo Hashimoto, was a cabinet minister under Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.

Ryutaro Hashimoto moved through the ranks of the Liberal Democratic Party over the next twenty years, landing a spot as Minister of Health and Welfare under premier Masayoshi Ohira in 1978, and in 1980 became the LDP's director of finance and public administration.

Ryutaro Hashimoto became a key figure in the strong LDP faction founded by Kakuei Tanaka in the 1970s, which later fell into the hands of Noboru Takeshita, who then was tainted by the Recruit scandal of 1988.

In 1991, the press had discovered that one of Ryutaro Hashimoto's secretaries had been involved in an illegal financial dealing.

Ryutaro Hashimoto retired as Minister of Finance from the Second Kaifu Cabinet.

Ryutaro Hashimoto was brought back to the cabinet when the LDP under Yohei Kono returned to power in 1994 by entering a ruling coalition with traditional archrival Japanese Socialist Party, giving the prime ministership to the junior partner, and the minor New Party Harbinger.

Ryutaro Hashimoto became Minister of International Trade and Industry in the Murayama Cabinet of Tomiichi Murayama.

Ryutaro Hashimoto won the election to LDP president against Jun'ichiro Koizumi 304 votes to 87, and succeeded Kono as leader of the party and as deputy prime minister in the Murayama cabinet.

Ryutaro Hashimoto reached an agreement with the United States for the repatriation of MCAS Futenma, a controversial US military base in an urban area of Okinawa, in April 1996.

On 27 September 1996, the Ryutaro Hashimoto cabinet dissolved the lower house of the National Diet.

Ryutaro Hashimoto resigned to take responsibility for this failure, and was succeeded as LDP president and Prime Minister by Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi.

Ryutaro Hashimoto stayed in a LDP adviser party, and in the 2nd Mori Cabinet the Minister of Okinawa Development Agency and Minister in charge of administrative reform were appointed.

Ryutaro Hashimoto's faction began to collapse late in 2003 while debating over whether to re-elect Koizumi.

Just prior to his death, Ryutaro Hashimoto submitted a letter addressed to "The People of the World" for publication in the book Water Voices from Around The World, which is a book affiliated with the United Nations' decade of water.

Ryutaro Hashimoto was married to Kumiko Hashimoto was born on 1941 and, and the couple had two sons and three daughters: Ryu, Gaku, Hiroko, Atsuko, and Danko.

In June 2006, Ryutaro Hashimoto was hospitalized in an ICU to undergo surgery to remove a large part of his colon.

On 1 July 2006 at the age of 68, Ryutaro Hashimoto died from complications of multiple organ failure and septic shock at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Shinjuku, Tokyo, just 4 weeks before his 69th birthday.