Izumi mulls appointing Okada as CDPJ secretary general

Jiji Press

13:03 JST, August 21, 2022

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Kenta Izumi, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, is planning on appointing former Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada as the opposition party’s secretary-general, several party sources said Saturday.

The incumbent secretary general, Chinami Nishimura, is likely to be switched to another position in the party’s executive team.

Izumi has been considering reshuffling the CDPJ’s executive roster since the party’s defeat in the July election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament.

By appointing the veteran lawmaker as secretary-general, Izumi aims to rebuild the party’s reputation ahead of unified local elections next spring.

“I’ve been consulted by the party leader on many different things, and I’ve been telling him my opinions, but nothing has been decided,” Okada said at a press conference in the city of Tsu in the central Japan prefecture of Mie.

Okada has been elected to the House of Representatives, the Diet’s lower chamber, 11 times. He served as leader of the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan, a predecessor of the CDPJ, as well as foreign minister and deputy prime minister when the DPJ was in power.