Aso, Taro << ah soh, tah roh >> (1940-…), was prime minister of Japan from September 2008 to September 2009. He headed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He succeeded Yasuo Fukuda , who had stepped down as prime minister and as head of the ruling LDP earlier that month. Aso had made previous attempts to head the LDP. He lost elections to Junichiro Koizumi in 2001, to Shinzo Abe in 2006, and to Fukuda in 2007. Each of these men served as the prime minister while leading the party.
Aso was born on Sept. 20, 1940, in Iizuka, in southwestern Japan. Like many prominent Japanese politicians of his generation, Aso came from a politically prominent family. His grandfather, Shigeru Yoshida, had served as prime minister almost continuously from 1946 to 1954. Aso’s father was chair of the Aso Cement Company, and his family owned a number of coal mines in the Fukuoka area. In 1963, Taro Aso graduated from the Faculty of Politics and Economics at Gakushuin University in Tokyo. From 1973 to 1979, he served as head of his family’s cement company.
In 1979, Aso was elected to the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Diet. He held a number of positions in the LDP and the Diet. Aso served as Japan’s minister for foreign affairs from 2005 to 2007. Aso is noted for his conservative nationalist stance on foreign policy and cultural issues.
In August 2009, the LDP was defeated in a general election by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The LDP had been in power almost continuously since 1955, though it lost considerable support in the years after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi retired in 2006. Koizumi was followed by a series of prime ministers who each served about a year. Aso stepped down as both prime minister and head of the LDP in September 2009. Yukio Hatoyama , head of the DPJ, succeeded him as prime minister. In 2012, newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe chose Aso to serve as deputy prime minister and finance minister.
