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9th President of the Republic of Japan | |
| Predecessor | Hata Tsutomu |
| Successor | Maehara Seiji |
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First Comrade of General Political Office of Japanese Nationalist Party | |
| Predecessor | Hata Tsutomu |
| Successor | Maehara Seiji |
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Member of the National Congress of Japan | |
| Constituency | Kyoto At-large |
| Born | March 7, 1945 (age 75) Fukuchiyama, Kyoto,  Republic of Japan
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| Political Party | Japanese Nationalist Party |
| Religion | Irreligion (Agnosticism) |
Tanigaki Sadakazu (タニガキ サダカズ, born March 7, 1945) is the President of the Republic of Japan and the First Comrade of General Political Office of the Japanese Nationalist Party from 2007 to 2015. His father is Tanigaki Senichi, a local senior party official in Kyoto. Younger Tanigaki joined the Party during his university days in 1966 and worked as a secretary to his father after been graduated in 1974. He remained a low-profile figure within the party organization for about 11 years.
Younger Tanigaki was prepared for a legal career after close to ten years of study when his father died in 1983. Through his family and academic background, Tanigaki unexpectedly rose through the party rank during mid to late 1980s in which he held various posts in Kyoto local government and party bureaucracy. Tanigaki was elected as the Mayor of Kyoto between 1991 and 1999. In 1995, Tanigaki was elected to the National Congress of Japan as the representative for Kyoto and is simultaneously re-elected in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. After served as a secretary in the Central Secretariat of the Nationalist Party of Japan between 1994 and 1998, Tanigaki was promoted as the member of the Party's General Political Office.
After his promotion to the GPO, his political career kept climbing higher. Tanigaki was subsequently appointed as Minister of Justice (1999–2001) and First Vice Prime Minister (2001–2007). Eventually, while served the First Vice Prime Minister, Tanigaki became the third-in-rank ("Third Comrade") at the General Political Office by 2002. He became as the first-in-rank ("First Comrade") as well as the leader of the Nationalist Party in 2006 after the previous "First Comrade" of the Party, Hata Tsutomu, announced his retirement from the General Political Office.
After elected by the National Congress as the President of the Republic of Japan and completely assumed the leadership of Japan in 2007, Tanigaki initiated a peaceful coexistence with the United States and the Soviet Union, implemented a liberal economic policy and called for the closer economic and security cooperation between the member states of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere as well as with the Southeast Asian and South Asian nations.
Tanigaki stepped down as the leader of Japanese Nationalist Party in 2014 and the President of the Republic of Japan in 2015; he was replaced by Maehara Seiji for both posts. He retained his seat as the representative of Kyoto in the National Congress in 2015. An avid bicycle rider, Tanigaki injured his spinal cord in a bicycle accident in July 2016, and remained hospitalized until 2018. He stayed out from the public during his hospitalization and later showed up being confined in a wheelchair. Due to his physical condition, he decided not to run for the Congress and announced his retirement from the party and the state in 2019. As of 2019, Tanigaki is still active in several public events and resides in his private residence in Kyoto.
