Kōzō Watanabe (Liberal Democratic Party politician)

Kōzō Watanabe (渡辺紘三, Watanabe Kōzō, 28 January 1942 – 16 September 2007) was a Japanese LDP politician and dietman. He was best known as an influential supporter of Kakuei Tanaka's faction, though had to retire early from politics in 1990 due to diabetes.^[1]

He is to be distinguished from the homonymous Kōzō Watanabe (Democratic Party politician) (different given name characters 渡部恒三) who was nicknamed "Kennedy" in the diet, while Kozo Watanabe (born 1942) was known as the spokesman of the Etsuzankai (ja:越山会) associated with Kakuei Tanaka.

He was elected in Niigata Prefecture's 2nd Electoral District in 1972 and served in vice-minister posts at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (Japan) and the Ministry of Construction (Japan).

References

^ Kakuei Tanaka - a political biography of modern Japan Archived 2018-01-25 at the Wayback Machine "In the Second District, Kozo Watanabe was Tanaka's normal front runner. He was forced to resign because of ill health. In his stead he sponsored Saburo ..."

[1] Kakuei Tanaka - a political biography of modern Japan Archived 2018-01-25 at the Wayback Machine "In the Second District, Kozo Watanabe was Tanaka's normal front runner. He was forced to resign because of ill health. In his stead he sponsored Saburo ..."

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