Naoto Kan

He graduated in 1970 from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and became a licensed benrishi (patent agent/attorney) in 1971.

After graduating from college, Kan worked at a patent office for four years.

He actively engaged in civic grassroots movements for years and also served on election campaign staff for Fusae Ichikawa, a women's rights activist.

After having lost in the 1976 and 1979 general elections and 1977 Upper House election, Kan achieved a seat in the lower house in 1980 as a member of the Socialist Democratic Federation.

On 8 June, Emperor Akihito formally appointed Kan as the 94th Prime Minister, and the 29th postwar prime minister.

His cabinet was formed later on the day.

Kan's approval ratings fell in the month of June after he proposed an increase in the sales tax rate from 5% to 10%.

His sales tax increase proposal was opposed by Ichirō Ozawa, amongst others in the DPJ, and the proposal was quickly scaled back by Kan. The botched sales tax increase proposal was partially blamed for the DPJ's disappointing results in the July House of Councillors election, where the DPJ lost its majority and was forced to work with smaller, unaffiliated parties (such as Your Party, the JCP, and the SDP) in order to secure passage of bills in the House of Councillors.

He gained national popularity in 1996, when serving as the Minister of Health and Welfare, admitting the government's responsibility for the spread of HIV-tainted blood in the 1980s and directly apologized to victims.

At that time, he was a member of a small party forming the ruling coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

His frank action was completely unprecedented and was applauded by the media and the public.

In 1998, his image was affected by allegations of an affair, vigorously denied by both parties, with a television newscaster and media consultant, Yūko Tonomoto.

After Yukio Hatoyama resigned as the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Kan again took over the position.

In July 2003, the DPJ and the Liberal Party led by Ichirō Ozawa agreed to form a united opposition party to prepare for the general election that was anticipated to take place in the fall.

During the campaign of the election of 2003, the DPJ called the election as the choice of the government between the ruling LDP-bloc and the DPJ, with Kan being presented as the alternative candidate to then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

His face was used as the trademark of the campaign against the LDP.

However, in 2004 Kan was accused of unpaid annuities and again resigned the position of leader.

On 10 May 2004, he officially announced his resignation and made the Shikoku Pilgrimage.

Later, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare spokesman apologized, saying the unpaid record was due to an administrative error.

In mid-October 2005, Kan, who turned 60 in 2006, proposed the creation of a new political party to be called the "Dankai (baby boomer) Party".

Kan was the first Prime Minister since the resignation of Junichiro Koizumi in 2006 to serve for more than one year, with his predecessors Yukio Hatoyama, Tarō Asō, Yasuo Fukuda, and Shinzo Abe either resigning prematurely or losing an election.

The initial intent of the party was to offer places of activity for the Japanese baby boomers – 2.7 million of whom began to retire en masse in 2007.

He believes the Japan Self-Defense Forces should play a more prominent role on the international stage.

Naoto Kan (菅 直人) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from June 2010 to September 2011.

On 6 January 2010, he was picked by Yukio Hatoyama to be the new finance minister, assuming the post in addition to deputy prime minister.

He replaced Hirohisa Fujii as finance minister.

In his first news conference, Kan announced his priority was stimulating growth and took the unusual step of naming a specific dollar-yen level as optimal to help exporters and stimulate the economy: "There are a lot of voices in the business world saying that (the dollar) around ¥95 is appropriate in terms of trade".

Hatoyama appeared to rebuke Kan. "When it comes to foreign exchange, stability is desirable and rapid moves are undesirable. The government basically shouldn't comment on foreign exchange," he told reporters.

On 2 June 2010, Yukio Hatoyama announced his intention to resign as the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and as prime minister, also saying that he had urged his backer in the party, Ichirō Ozawa, to resign as secretary general.

The Cabinet resigned en masse on 4 June.

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Land and Transport Minister Seiji Maehara, though once considered to be possible successors to Hatoyama, announced their support for Kan. Kan, at the age of 63, won the leadership of the DPJ with 291 votes to 129, defeating a relatively unknown Ozawa-backed legislator Shinji Tarutoko, 50, who was leading the environmental policy committee in the lower house of the Diet.

Subsequently, on 4 June, Kan was designated prime minister by the Diet.

In August, Kan apologised to the Republic of Korea on the 100th anniversary of the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty.

Ozawa challenged Kan's leadership of the DPJ in September.

Although it was initially believed that Ozawa had a slight edge among DPJ members of parliament, in the final vote Kan garnered the support of 206 DPJ lawmakers to Ozawa's 200.

Local rank-and-file party members and activists overwhelmingly supported Kan, and according to opinion polls the wider Japanese public preferred Kan to Ozawa by as much as a 4:1 ratio.

On 26 August 2011, Kan announced his resignation.

Yoshihiko Noda was elected as his successor.

On 1 August 2012, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Kan would be one of the members of the UN high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda.

Kan was born in Ube, Yamaguchi, the eldest son of Hisao Kan, the executive director of the glass manufacturing company Central Glass.