Yoshihiko Noda

Biography

Yoshihiko Noda was born in 1957 in Funabashi, Chiba, the son of a paratrooper in the Self-Defense Forces. He graduated in political science from Waseda University in 1980 and joined the first class of the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management. He was elected to the Chiba Prefectural Assembly in 1987 and to the House of Representatives in 1993 for the Japan New Party, but lost his seat in 1996 and spent four years out of parliament.

Returned to the Diet in 2000 as a member of the Democratic Party of Japan, he became a leading fiscal conservative in the party. When the party came to power in 2009 he served as senior vice minister of finance and from June 2010 as finance minister under Naoto Kan. He won the party leadership in August 2011 and became prime minister in September, in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

As prime minister he pushed through legislation to double the consumption tax and restarted idled nuclear reactors. His government's purchase of three of the Senkaku Islands from a private owner in September 2012 set off a severe dispute with China. Facing defections, he called an early election in December 2012, which the party lost to the Liberal Democrats; he resigned as leader and handed over to Shinzo Abe.

Noda remained in the House of Representatives and later served as secretary-general of the Democratic Party. He joined the Constitutional Democratic Party, won its presidency in September 2024 and led it to large gains in the general election that October. In January 2026 he became co-leader of the new Centrist Reform Alliance formed with Komeito.