Ex-PM Hata dies at 82

August 28, 2017

TOKYO- Former Japanese Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata died of old age at his home in Tokyo on Monday morning. He was 82.

After defecting from the Liberal Democratic Party in a bid to realize political reform, Hata became Japan's prime minister in 1994 in a coalition government that excluded LDP members.

He served in the post for only 64 days, the shortest term of any Japanese prime minister under the country's current Constitution, which took effect on May 3, 1947.

After working at a bus company, Hata ran in the 1969 election of the House of Representatives from a district in the central prefecture of Nagano to succeed his father as a lawmaker of the lower chamber of the Diet and won a seat for the first time.

He was elected to the Lower House 14 times in a row. Jiji Press