Prime Ministership
By 1985, Takeshita's power within the party had eclipsed Tanaka's, and he was able to win enough support to defeat Tanaka as the head of the LDP's largest faction. In July 1986 he left the Cabinet, only to be named to the key post of secretary general of the party. In November 1987 he became party chairman and subsequently prime minister, replacing Yasuhiro Nakasone, his inner rival.
Among the highlights of the period in which Takeshita led the government, he acknowledged that Japan had been an aggressor during World War II. This statement was part of a speech in the Japanese Diet.
Read more about this topic: Noboru Takeshita
Famous quotes containing the word prime:
“Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life. What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? What do you do after that? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world.”
—Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)