Former Japan Public Safety Chair Matsumoto Dies at 75

Tokyo, March 19 (Jiji Press)–Jun Matsumoto, a former Liberal Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Japan’s parliament, who served as chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, died on Thursday at the age of 75. He had been battling stomach cancer. Matsumoto, known as a top aide to former Prime Minister Taro Aso, began his political career on the Yokohama City Council in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, where he was born. He was elected to the Lower House from the Kanagawa No. 1 constituency in 1996 and went on to serve seven terms. He was appointed deputy chief cabinet secretary in the Aso cabinet, before becoming chairman of the National Public Safety Commission in 2016 under the cabinet of then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Matsumoto joined an LDP group at its founding that later became the Shikokai faction led by Aso, remaining a steadfast ally of Aso throughout his political career. “I can’t find words,” Aso said Thursday. “From the founding of Shikokai to its management, he contributed in ways no one else could match.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]