Kyoko Nakayama

Who is Kyoko Nakayama?

Kyoko Nakayama is a Japanese politician of the Japan Restoration Party, formerly of the Sunrise Party of Japan, and before that a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, Machimura Faction, and is currently serving her first term as a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet. She was Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for the North Korean abduction issue under Junichiro Koizumi, beginning in 2002. She left the post in 2004 but was reappointed by Shinzo Abe in 2006. She was appointed by Yasuo Fukuda as State Minister in charge of the Population and Gender Equality Issues on August 1, 2008.

A graduate of the University of Tokyo, she worked at the Ministry of Finance from 1966 until 2002 and was elected to the House of Councillors for the first time in 2007. During her campaign, she pledged to resolve the abduction issue. Her husband, Nariaki Nakayama, is a former transport minister and also a diet member of the Japan Restoration Party.

She left the LDP and joined the Sunrise Party of Japan on June 21, 2010. Along with other members of that party she moved to Shintaro Ishihara's short lived Sunrise Party, and with the merger of that party with the Japan Restoration Party she became a member of that party.