Shizuka Kamei, former policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party, has emerged once again as a key player in a coalition government, overcoming a political setback suffered from his opposition to the postal privatization plan championed by then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Kamei's resistance got him expelled from the LDP in 2005, but the 72-year-old veteran is now back as the head of Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), one of the parties that will make up the new ruling coalition government.
Kamei's comeback as postal minister will accelerate the DPJ's apparent retreat from the privatization plan. The three ruling parties — the DPJ, Kokumin Shinto and the Social Democratic Party — have already agreed to freeze an earlier plan to sell stock to fully privatize two of the four postal firms.