is a Japanese politician and a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

in the

Diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

(national legislature).

Early life and education

A native of

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It ...

, Mabuchi was born on 23 August 1960. He holds a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, which he received from

Yokohama National University , abbreviated to or YNU, is a national university located in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Founded in 1876, it became a national university in 1949, and currently comprises five graduate schools and four undergraduate faculties. The univ ...

in March 1984.

Career

Until 2000, Mabuchi worked in private sector and became director of the firm he was working for at age 32. He was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 2003 after an unsuccessful run in 2000.Johnston, Eric,
Contenders' backgrounds
, ''

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched b ...

'', 28 August 2011, p. 2. He was appointed senior vice minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism in September 2009. On 17 September 2010, Mabuchi was named as the new minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism in the reshuffled

Naoto Kan is a Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from June 2010 to September 2011. Kan was the first Prime Minister since the resignation of Junichiro Koizumi in 2006 to serve for ...

cabinet. Mabuchi left prime minister Kan's cabinet on 14 January 2011, after the then-opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) passed a censure motion against him following the leaking of

Japanese Coast Guard The is the coast guard of Japan. The Japan Coast Guard consists of about 13,700 personnel and is responsible for the protection of the coastline of Japan under the oversight of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. T ...

footage of the 2010 Senkaku boat collision incident. and ran unsuccessfully to replace him in the DPJ presidential election after Kan stepped down, losing to

Yoshihiko Noda is a Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 2011 to 2012. He was a member of the Democratic Party, and a member of the House of Representatives (lower house) in the Diet (national legislature). He was named to succeed Naoto ...

, who replaced Kan as Prime Minister. After the

Democratic Party of Japan The was a centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to centre-left liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic ...

suffered a major defeat to the LDP under Noda at

2012 Japanese general election General elections were held in Japan on 16 December 2012. Voters gave the Liberal Democratic Party a landslide victory, ejecting the Democratic Party from power after three years. It was the fourth worst defeat suffered by a ruling party in Ja ...

. Noda resigned to accept responsibility for the defeat. The resulting DPJ presidential election was held on 25 December 2012, which was contested by Mabuchi and

Banri Kaieda is a Japanese politician who has served as the Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan since 2021. A member of the House of Representatives of Japan, he also served as the President of the Democratic Party of Japan between 2012 a ...

. It was won by Kaieda with 90 votes to Mabuchi's 54 votes. Mabuchi continued to hold his seat until he was narrowly defeated in the 2017 general election. He had the highest ratio of margin of defeat ''(sekihairitsu)'' (97.27%) among all defeated candidates in the election. Mabuchi returned to the House in February 2019 after the resignation of

Shinji Tarutoko is a Japanese politician and former member of the House of Representatives. Early life and education Tarutoko was born in Shimane Prefecture on 6 August 1959. He studied at the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management. Career Tarut ...

, who was contesting the Osaka 12th district by-election. Being the candidate with the next largest ''sekihairitsu'' in

Kibō no Tō was a conservative political party in Japan founded by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. The party was founded just before the call of the 2017 general election. The party's ideology was mainly Japanese conservatism and nationalism. Kibō no Tō ...

's 2017 Kinki proportional representation list, Mabuchi was next in line to fill Tarutoko's PR seat. Mabuchi chose to sit as an independent.

Nickname

Mabuchi is a bodybuilder, and has been nicknamed "The Terminator".

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

br>Japan can't reject nuclear power out of hand: lawmaker 5 July 2011
/ref> On the other hand, he calls himself "lone gorilla".

Personal life

Mabuchi is married and has six children, five of whom are girls. His sparetime activities include surfing and cooking.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mabuchi, Sumio 1960 births Living people Members of the House of Representatives (Japan) People from Nara, Nara Democratic Party of Japan politicians Ministers of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan Japanese civil engineers Yokohama National University alumni 21st-century Japanese politicians