Hikaru Matsunaga

Matsunaga was an attorney and prosecutor.^[3] He began his career as a public prosecutor in southern regions of Japan in the 1950s.^[4] Later he became a member of the LDP,^[4] a member of the Seirankai.^[5] Matsunaga was education minister in the mid-1980s.^[2] He served as minister of international trade and industry.^[6] He was appointed by Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu to this post on 9 August 1989.^[7]

Then he was appointed by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto as the minister of finance on 27 January 1998.^[8] Matsunaga replaced Hiroshi Mitsuzuka as finance minister.^[9] Mitsuzuka was forced to resign due to the corrupt behaviour of the officials at the ministry.^[10] In April 1998, Matsunaga reported that 112 ministry officials would be punished due to their excessive entertainment from banks, brokerage firms and insurers under their supervision.^[11] Matsunaga's term as finance minister was short lived, and he resigned on 30 July 1998, replaced by Kiichi Miyazawa, another veteran LDP politician.^[12]

In addition to these cabinet roles, Matsunaga held the following positions in the Diet: Chairman of the lower house budget committee until 1998,^[9] director of the Diet education committee and vice-chairman of the PARC education division.^[13] He lost his seat in the lower house election on 25 June 2000.^[14]

Matsunaga died on 11 October 2022, at the age of 93.^[15]