Background
He was born in Zushi, Kanagawa, the son of author and former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara.
石原 伸晃
He was born in Zushi, Kanagawa, the son of author and former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara.
He 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 (Liberal Democratic Party) 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 is currently chairman of the Highways Committee of the Liberal Democratic Party Policy Affairs Research Council. Following Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda"s resignation, Ishihara stood as a candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party presidency.
Ishihara was named as a potential Liberal Democratic Party candidate for the 2014 gubernatorial election in Tokyo, but along with fellow Liberal Democratic Party legislators Yuriko Koike, Tamayo Marukawa and Satsuki Katayama, performed poorly in a December 2013 poll against Yoichi Masuzoe and Hideo Higashikokubaru.
