Koji Kakizawa, a former foreign minister and member of both houses of the Diet, died Tuesday of esophagus cancer at a hospital in Tokyo, his family said. He was 75.
After defecting from the Liberal Democratic Party and forming the now-defunct Liberal Party in 1994, Kakizawa held the post of foreign minister for about two months in the coalition government of Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata, which excluded the LDP.
He rejoined the LDP in 1995.
The former Finance Ministry bureaucrat was first elected to the House of Councilors as a member of the now-defunct New Liberal Club in 1977 and entered the Lower House in 1980. He then left the NLC and joined the LDP.
Kakizawa made an unsuccessful run for governor of Tokyo in 1999 after he was expelled from the LDP. He served in the Lower House for seven terms until 2003.