Ex-Japan Lower House Speaker Yohei Kono Dies at 89

Tokyo, June 10 (Jiji Press)–Yohei Kono, former speaker of Japan’s House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, who is also known to have written a landmark 1993 statement over wartime comfort women, died on Monday at the age of 89, people close to him said Wednesday. A native of Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, Kono was a leading dove within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and championed stable ties with Asian neighbors of Japan, including China and South Korea. He also served as LDP president when the party was an opposition party and as foreign minister. As chief cabinet secretary in 1993 under the administration of then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, Kono issued the landmark statement, which expressed the Japanese government’s “sincere apologies and remorse” to those who served as prostitutes for Japanese troops before and during World War II after the issue emerged as a major diplomatic and political challenge. Some conservatives contend that the statement encouraged subsequent demands from South Korea over wartime issues. Kono was born in January 1937 as the second son of former Construction Minister Ichiro Kono, a powerful figure in the LDP. After graduating from Waseda University and working at Marubeni-Iida Co., now Marubeni Corp., a major Japanese trading house, he entered politics following his father’s sudden death. Kono won his first parliamentary seat in the 1967 election for the all-important Lower House, running in the race from the then Kanagawa No. 3 constituency. He was elected 14 consecutive times. In 1976, amid fallout from the Lockheed bribery scandal, he left the LDP, criticizing its money-driven political culture. He founded the New Liberal Club in the year, before returning to the LDP in 1986. Soon after the LDP lost power in the 1993 Lower House election, he became the party’s president. In a last-ditch meeting in early 1994 with then Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, who led a non-LDP coalition government, Kono helped clinch an agreement on political reform legislation, including the introduction of a single-seat constituency system for Lower House elections. When the LDP returned to power in June 1994 by backing then Social Democratic Party of Japan leader Tomiichi Murayama as prime minister, Kono served as deputy prime minister and foreign minister, helping support the coalition government among their parties and another political party. Kono sought a second term as LDP chief in 1995 but dropped his candidacy after factional maneuvering left him trailing Ryutaro Hashimoto, who later became prime minister. He returned as foreign minister under the administrations of then Prime Ministers Keizo Obuchi and Yoshiro Mori, which were launched in October 1999 and April 2000, respectively. In November 2003, he became speaker of the Lower House, serving until the chamber’s dissolution in July 2009. His 2,029 days in office are the second-longest tenure in the post. He retired from politics without running in the 2009 Lower House election. He received the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers in 2011. In 2002, worsening hepatitis C led him to undergo a living-donor liver transplant using part of the liver of his first son, Taro Kono, a Lower House lawmaker of the LDP. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi mourned the death of Yohei Kono, saying in a post on X, formerly Twitter, “I am deeply saddened and would like to extend my heartfelt sympathy.” “His sincere engagement with history issues and commitment to dialogue and understanding should be remembered as a cornerstone of Japan’s peace diplomacy,” Takaichi added. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]