Japan Loses Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone
by John Andah
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has died at the age of 101, Concise News understands, according to NHK television.
Nakasone, prime minister from 1982 to 1987, boosted Japan’s global profile.
Nakasone pursued domestic reforms aggressively, privatizing Japan’s state-run railway, tobacco and telecommunications monopolies. Critics say, however, that he failed to implement a landmark set of reform proposals to help Japan’s economy grow.
He won a rare fifth year in office after leading his Liberal Democratic Party to a landslide victory in 1986 elections. But his career was shadowed by links to a huge political scandal, a stocks-for-favors scam.
Born in the hilly district of Takasaki, northwest of Tokyo, on May 27, 1918, to a wealthy timber trader, Nakasone graduated from the Tokyo Imperial University, later the Tokyo University, before entering the Home Ministry in 1941.
He joined the Tokyo Police Department after Japan’s surrender in 1945. Nakasone has two daughters and a politician son, Hirofumi.