Yoshio Sakurauchi, a former speaker of the House of Representatives and senior lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, died of respiratory failure Saturday night at a Tokyo hospital, his family said Sunday. He was 91.
Sakurauchi was the son of late Lower House member and prewar Finance Minister Yukio Sakurauchi.
He was first elected in the 1947 general elections and had been elected a total of 18 times to the Diet's lower chamber, mostly in his Shimane constituency. He had also been elected once to the House of Councilors and served there for 19 months.