Takahiro Yokomichi

Takahiro Yokomichi
横路 孝弘
Speaker of the House of Representatives
In office
16 September 2009 – 16 November 2012
Prime Minister
DeputySeishirō Etō
Preceded byYōhei Kōno
Succeeded byBunmei Ibuki
Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives
In office
21 September 2005 – 21 July 2009
SpeakerYōhei Kōno
Preceded byKansei Nakano
Succeeded bySeishirō Etō
Governor of Hokkaido
In office
23 April 1983 – 22 April 1995
Preceded byNaohiro Dōgakinai
Succeeded byTatsuya Hori
Member of the House of Representatives from Hokkaido
In office
7 November 1996 – 28 September 2017
Succeeded byDaiki Michishita
Constituency
In office
27 December 1969 – 23 April 1983
ConstituencyHokkaido-1st
Personal details
Born(1941-01-03)3 January 1941
Sapporo, Japan
Died2 February 2023(2023-02-02) (aged 82)
Political party
Alma materUniversity of Tokyo
WebsiteOfficial website

Takahiro Yokomichi (横路 孝弘, Yokomichi Takahiro, 3 January 1941 – 2 February 2023)[1] was a Japanese politician who belonged to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and was a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Sapporo, Hokkaidō, and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he was elected to the first of his five terms in the House of Representatives in 1969 as a member of the Japan Socialist Party in the electoral district of his late father Setsuo. He left the House of Representatives and was elected to be the governor of Hokkaidō. He served for three terms from 1983 to 1995. After finishing his term as governor, he left the Socialist Party, joining the DPJ. In 1996 he was re-elected to the House of Representatives. He is the leader of the most left-leaning faction in the DPJ. After the victory of 2009 elections, then-DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama named him as the next house speaker.

In the 2012 general election Yokomichi lost his single-seat electorate but retained a seat in the Diet through the proportional representation system.[2] He managed to regain his seat in the 2014 election and held it until he retired in 2017.