Kenta Izumi

Kenta Izumi
泉 健太
Izumi in 2023
Leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 30 November 2021
Deputy	Seiji Osaka Chinami Nishimura Kiyomi Tsujimoto
Preceded by	Yukio Edano
Member of the House of Representatives
Incumbent
Assumed office 26 April 2016
Preceded by	Kensuke Miyazaki
Constituency	Kyoto-3rd
In office 10 November 2003 – 12 April 2016
Preceded by	Shigefumi Okuyama
Constituency	Kinki PR (2012–2016) Kyoto-3rd (2003–2012)
Personal details
Born	(1974-07-29) 29 July 1974 (age 49) Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Political party	CDP
Other political affiliations	DPJ (2000–2016, merger) DP (2016–2017, split) Kibō (2017–2018) DPP (2018–2020)
Alma mater	Ritsumeikan University (LLB)
Signature
Website	Official website

Kenta Izumi (泉 健太, Izumi Kenta, born 29 July 1974) is a Japanese politician who has been the leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) and the de facto Leader of the Opposition since 30 November 2021. He is also a member of the House of Representatives in the National Diet, currently for the Kyoto 3rd district. He was first elected in 2000 under the Democratic Party of Japan. He served as Parliamentary Vice-Minister of the Cabinet Office from 2009 to 2010. After that, he served as chairman of the National Diet Measures Committee and Political Affairs Research Chairman of the Kibō no Tō, the Democratic Party for the People, and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Izumi was born in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and was raised in Ishikari. After graduating from junior high and high school, he attended Ritsumeikan University Law School. While in university, he began to assist Kazunori Yamanoi, and, in 1996, when the Democratic Party formed, served as permanent secretary inside the Kyoto Prefecture. When he graduated from university in 1998, he became Tetsuro Fukuyama's secretary.

He ran as a candidate in the 2000 election for Kyoto-3, but lost, and did not win a seat proportionally. He ran again in 2003 election, and won. During the Democratic Party of Japan government's from 2009-2012, he served as Parliamentary Vice-Minister of the Cabinet Office and was in charge of the Administrative Reform Council. Although he lost his seat both in 2003 election and 2014 election, he won a seat proportionally both times, and won a by-election for the seat in 2016. When the Democratic Party split in 2017, he joined Kibō no Tō, where he served as the chairman of the National Assembly Committee from 2017 to 2018. In the Democratic Party for the People, which formed from a merger of Kibō no Tō and the Democratic Party, he served as the chairman of the National Assembly Committee in 2018 and the chairman of the Political Affairs Research Committee from 2018 to 2020.

In 2020, following the merger of the DPP into the CDP, he ran for leadership, but lost to Yukio Edano. He then became the party's Political Affairs Research Chairman. When Edano resigned as party leader following the results of the 2021 election, Izumi ran again in the leadership election and won, defeating Seiji Osaka and others to become party leader. Izumi formed the CDP's shadow cabinet 'Next Cabinet' on September 2022 and became the shadow Prime Minister.^[1]