Shinzō Abe, Japanese lawyer and politician, 90th Prime Minister of Japan
Abe Shinzo (安倍 晋三, Abe Shinzō, IPA: [abe ɕindzoː]; born 21 September 1954) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. He is the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. Abe also served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2006 under Junichiro Koizumi and was briefly leader of the LDP while it was in opposition during 2012.
Abe was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1993 election. He was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2005, before replacing him as prime minister and LDP president in September 2006. He was subsequently confirmed as prime minister by a special session of the National Diet, becoming Japan's youngest post-war prime minister, and the first to have been born after World War II. Abe resigned as prime minister just after one year in office, due to medical complications from ulcerative colitis, shortly after his party lost that year's House of Councillors election. He was replaced by Yasuo Fukuda, who became the first in a series of five prime ministers who each failed to retain office for more than sixteen months.
After recovering from his illness, Abe staged an unexpected political comeback, defeating Shigeru Ishiba, the former defense minister, in a ballot to become LDP president for the second time in September 2012. Following the LDP's landslide victory in the general election that December, he became the first former prime minister to return to the office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948. He led the LDP to two further landslides in the 2014 and 2017 elections, becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister. In August 2020, Abe announced his second resignation as prime minister, citing a significant resurgence of his ulcerative colitis. He tendered his resignation on 16 September, upon the Diet electing Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga as his successor.Abe is a conservative whom political commentators have widely described as a right-wing Japanese nationalist. He is a member of Nippon Kaigi and holds negationist views on Japanese history, including denying the role of government coercion in the recruitment of comfort women during World War II, a position which has created tension with neighboring South Korea. He is considered a hard-liner with respect to North Korea, and advocates revising Article 9 of the pacifist Japanese constitution to permit Japan to maintain military forces. Abe's premiership was known internationally for his government's economic policies, nicknamed Abenomics, which pursued monetary easing, fiscal stimulus, and structural reforms.
1954Sep, 21
Shinzō Abe
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Events on 1954
- 13Feb
NCAA Division I
Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game. - 28Feb
NTSC
The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public. - 1Apr
United States Air Force Academy
United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado. - 25Apr
Bell Labs
The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories. - 18Jun
1954 Guatemalan coup d'état
Carlos Castillo Armas leads an invasion force across the Guatemalan border, setting in motion the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état