Ishihara was born and raised in the
Greater Tokyo Area, the son of essay writer
Noriko Ishihara and author and former Tokyo governor
Shintaro Ishihara. Ishihara attended
Keio Gijuku High School and graduated from the literature faculty of
Keio University in 1981. After university, he worked as a political reporter for
Nippon Television, covering the Finance and Foreign Ministries and the Prime Minister. In 1990, he was elected to the
House of Representatives as representative for the Fourth District of Tokyo under the
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ticket. He was appointed Parliamentary Vice-Minister of International Trade and Industry in 1996. Under
Junichiro Koizumi's first Cabinet in 2001, he became Minister of State for Administrative and Regulatory Reform. He served as Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport from 2003 to 2004, and was chairman of the Highways Committee of the LDP Policy Affairs Research Council from 2005 to 2007. Following Prime Minister
Yasuo Fukuda's resignation, Ishihara stood as a candidate for the LDP presidency. In
the leadership election, held on September 22, 2008,
Taro Aso won with 351 of the 527 votes; Ishihara placed fourth with 37 votes. Ishihara was named as a potential LDP candidate for the
2014 gubernatorial election in Tokyo, but along with fellow LDP legislators
Yuriko Koike,
Tamayo Marukawa and
Satsuki Katayama, performed poorly in a December 2013 poll against
Yoichi Masuzoe and
Hideo Higashikokubaru. Ishihara was head of the Kinmirai Seiji Kenkyūkai faction of the
LDP from 2012 to 2021. In 2021, Ishihara lost his seat in the
general election. After the elections, he was appointed an advisor to
Kishida Cabinet, but he resigned after a week when it emerged that the local LDP chapter he headed, received government subsidies intended for businesses recovering from the
COVID-19 pandemic. == References ==