Shin Kanemaru, Japanese Political Kingmaker, Dies at 81

Shin Kanemaru, for years one of Japan’s most powerful politicians and later at the center of one of its biggest corruption scandals, died today. He was 81.

Kanemaru died at a hospital in his hometown in the central Japanese prefecture of Yamanashi, according to a Liberal Democratic Party official.

Media reports said he died after a stroke. It quoted family members as saying Kanemaru was well until Wednesday.

Kanemaru, who helped put four prime ministers in office, was regarded in Japan as the consummate back-room politician and kingmaker.

Although he never held a top government office, the poker-faced Kanemaru was called “godfather” for the ruthless way he ran the business-oriented LDP. He boasted that he could make and break prime ministers thanks to the big bloc of LDP lawmakers he funded and controlled.

He did serve as deputy prime minister under Yasuhiro Nakasone between July 1986 and November 1987. He was also deputy president of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1992.

Kanemaru’s political career was brought to an abrupt end in 1992 when he resigned from parliament over illegal donations from a mob-linked trucking company, a scandal that shook up the LDP and spurred voter outrage over corruption. Voters the next year threw the LDP out of power for the first time in nearly four decades.

He was arrested in 1993 on charges of tax evasion, but his trial was suspended because of chronic illness.

Kanemaru had long suffered from diabetes, and used a wheelchair.

He is survived by sons Yasunobu, 53, and Shingo, 51, and a daughter, Yoshimune, 47.