Prime minister: Naoto Kan

 

 Naoto Kan became prime minister in June 2010, following the resignation of Yukio Hatoyama amid a damaging dispute over a US air base.

A former leftist activist, Mr Kan is Japan's fifth premier in four years, and the first in over a decade not to hail from a political dynasty.

Mr Hatoyama's government, in which Mr Kan served as deputy PM, came to power in a groundbreaking election in 2009 which saw the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) end decades of rule by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

But Mr Hatoyama's support plummeted after he backtracked on an election promise to move the unpopular US base off Okinawa, enraging locals as well as the pacifist Social Democrats, who quit his coalition.

Mr Kan said he would honour an agreement to relocate the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within Okinawa.

However, soon after becoming PM, his government suffered a painful setback in elections to the upper house of parliament in July 2010, losing its majority.

While the DPJ and its small coalition partner, the Your Party, still had a large majority in the more powerful lower house, the change meant the government needed opposition support in the upper house to pass some legislation.

The defeat was attributed to comments ahead of the vote by Mr Kan suggesting the possibility of doubling Japan's 5% sales tax.

Mr Kan, the son of a factory manager and a graduate of applied sciences, campaigned in the 1970s for pacifist and environmental causes and entered parliament with a leftist party in 1980.

He help to found the then-opposition Democratic Party in 1996.

He achieved popularity in the mid-1990s when as health minister he brought to light government culpability in a scandal over HIV-tainted blood products.

In January 2010, Mr Kan, took over as finance minister.