By KOHEI MORIOKA/ Staff Writer
November 5, 2024 at 12:22 JST
Hiromasa Nakano, a former parliamentary vice minister of economy, trade and industry (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba plans to appoint Hiromasa Nakano as new land minister, thereby keeping a member of junior coalition partner Komeito in the Cabinet, sources said Nov. 4.
All of Ishiba’s Cabinet plans are dependent on his reappointment as prime minister.
Komeito asked for the appointment of Nakano to succeed incumbent Tetsuo Saito, who is expected to leave the Cabinet and replace Keiichi Ishii as the party’s new leader.
Nakano, 46, is a Lower House member in his fifth term and a former parliamentary vice minister of economy, trade and industry.
Formerly a land ministry bureaucrat, he now heads Komeito’s economy, trade and industry division.
Saito is expected to be elected Komeito’s chief representative at an extraordinary party convention on Nov. 9. Ishii resigned over the party’s losses in the Oct. 27 Lower House election.
Ishiba, president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will form a new Cabinet if he is voted prime minister again at a special Diet session expected to be convened on Nov. 11.
Justice Minister Hideki Makihara and agriculture minister Yasuhiro Ozato lost their seats in the Lower House election.
Ishiba plans to appoint Keisuke Suzuki as new justice minister and Taku Eto as new agriculture minister while retaining other ministers, the sources said.
Suzuki, 47, is a Lower House member in his sixth term, a former state minister for foreign affairs, and a member of the LDP’s Aso faction.
He told the party’s in-house investigation that he had spoken at a meeting of an organization related to the Unification Church, now formally called the World Federation for World Peace and Unification.
The LDP published the results of its investigation about ties between party lawmakers and the religious organization in September 2022.
Eto, 64, is a Lower House member in his eighth term and served as agriculture minister in the Abe Cabinet for one year from September 2019.
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