Born the grandson of poets
Yosano Akiko and
Yosano Tekkan in Tokyo, Yosano graduated from the
University of Tokyo in 1963. In 1972 he unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives, then served as secretary to
Yasuhiro Nakasone. He ran again in 1976 and was elected. On 27 August 2007, he was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, replacing
Yasuhisa Shiozaki. He was replaced by
Nobutaka Machimura on 27 September when
Yasuo Fukuda succeeded Abe. He was appointed as Minister of Economic and Fiscal Policy and Minister of Regulatory Reform on 1 August 2008.
Timothy Geithner in 2009 Following the resignation of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, Yosano announced his candidacy for the LDP presidency on 8 September 2008: In
the leadership election, held on 22 September 2008,
Tarō Asō was elected with 351 of the 527 votes, while Yosano trailed in second place with 66 votes. In Aso's cabinet, appointed on 24 September 2008, Yosano retained his post as Minister of Economic and Fiscal Policy. On 18 February 2009, with the resignation of Shoichi Nakagawa on the case of the G7 conference, he took office as Minister of Finance and Minister in charge of financial services. On 4 April 2010, Yosano,
Takeo Hiranuma,
Hiroyuki Sonoda,
Takao Fujii and
Yoshio Nakagawa announced their plans to leave the LDP to establish a new political party, the
Sunrise Party of Japan. He left the Sunrise Party on 13 January 2011 to join the
Naoto Kan's cabinet as Minister of Economic and Fiscal Policy. Yosano was known for advocating an increase in the
consumption tax to reconstruct the nation's debt-ridden fiscal structure. After joining the DPJ government, he drew up the plans for the 2012 consumption tax increase. The legislation was passed through the House of Representatives on 26 June 2012 and passed the Upper House on 10 August 2012. ==Personal life and death==