Kazuhiro Haraguchi

Who is Kazuhiro Haraguchi?

Kazuhiro Haraguchi is a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet. A native of Saga, Saga and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he was elected to the assembly of Saga Prefecture for the first time in 1987 as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, serving there for two times. In 1996 he was elected to the House of Representatives from Saga's 1st district for the first time as a member of the New Frontier Party after running unsuccessfully in 1993 as an independent. He switched to the DPJ in 1998. He was Minister of Internal Affairs from 2009 to 2010, in Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan's Cabinets.

Haraguchi studied Psychology at the University of Tokyo and attended the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management. He often appears on television in which he discusses tax, pension, and decentralization issues.

In the 2012 general election Haraguchi lost his single-seat electorate but retained a seat in the diet through the proportional representation system.