Hiromu Nonaka, Abe critic and former government spokesman, dies at 92

Hiromu Nonaka, a pacifist politician from the Liberal Democratic Party who served as the government's top spokesman in the late 1990s and was critical of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to amend the Constitution, died Friday at a hospital in Kyoto, a party source said. He was 92.

Once regarded as one of the LDP's most influential doyens, the Kyoto native served as chief Cabinet secretary in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi from 1998 to 1999, working toward the establishment of the three-way coalition government comprising the LDP, the Liberal Party and New Komeito.

Nonaka became secretary-general of the LDP in 2000. In the party's leadership race in April 2001, he backed former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who was defeated by Junichiro Koizumi.