Hiroshi Nakada shocked the nation in March when, at the age of 37, he was elected as the mayor of Yokohama, beating 72-year-old Hidenobu Takahide. Takahide, who died in August, ran the city for 12 years and was backed in the election by the ruling coalition and the opposition Social Democratic Party.
After graduating in economics from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo in 1989, Nakada entered the city's elite Matsushita Seikei Juku (Matsushita Institute of Government and Management), a Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture-based private institution established to nurture future political leaders. He graduated from there in 1992, and the following year he was elected to the House of Representatives.
Until entering the mayoral race, Nakada remained a Diet member. First, he was with the now-defunct Japan New Party; then from 1994 with Shinshinto (New Frontier Party) until it dissolved in late 1997. Then, he was an Independent member in a parliamentary group with the Democratic Party of Japan -- but the DPJ kicked him out when he voted for Junichiro Koizumi to be prime minister in April 2001, and not the DPJ's leader, Yukio Hatoyama.