Miki Watanabe (渡邉 美樹, Watanabe Miki, born October 5, 1959) is a Japanese entrepreneur and politician. He founded the Watami chain of izakaya restaurants and headed the company until 2011, when he resigned to run in the Tokyo gubernatorial election, 2011. Watanabe's run for the governorship of Tokyo was inspired by Michael Bloomberg's mayorship of New York City.[1] Watanabe came in third with 16.8%, losing to incumbent governor Shintaro Ishihara.
Watanabe got opportunities to appear as a commentator on NHK General TV, NHK Educational TV, Nippon TV and Tokyo Broadcasting TV , raised his name recognition, and was elected to the House of Councillors representing the Liberal Democratic Party in the 2013 election. NHK had published his book from the affiliated publisher "NHK Publishing".[2] As of January 2014, he was the wealthiest member of the House of Councillors with reported personal assets of 1.76 billion yen.[3] He is a member of the Committee on Economy and Industry, Committee on Oversight of Administration, Special Committee on Reconstruction after the Great East Japan earthquake, and Research Committee on Deflation-Ending Measures and Strengthening Public Finance for Nationals' Life.[4]
The Watami group has faced criticism as a "black company" for its harsh treatment of employees,[5] and was voted the worst company in Japan to work for in 2012 and 2013.[6] The 2008 suicide of Mina Mori, a Watami employee who had worked 140 hours of overtime was ruled a case of karōshi (death from overwork) by the Kanagawa Prefecture Labor Standards Office, who also accused the company of numerous labor law violations.[7] In December 2015 Watami reached an out-of-court settlement of 130 million yen with the family and Watanabe apologised.[8]
Watanabe founded the School Aid Japan charity in 2001 to build schools and orphanages in Cambodia and Nepal.[9] In Japan, Watanabe purchased a educational corporation which had being in financial difficulties due to advice of Hirofumi Shimomura, a members of the House of Representatives and Shinzo Abe 's aide. Later, a media belonging to the Asahi Newspaper reported that Watanabe made a female staff of its educational corporation his mistress like a sexual tool and abandoned her like garbage with only a notification of mobile e-mail, that there was nothing what could be seeked myself to your inside.[10] The educational corporate officer who sympathized with her was fired.[10]
Watanabe is a billboard of Seminar companies of LGAT together with Ikujiro Nonaka, Jitsuro Terashima and others.[11] Watanabe is giving opportunities of the high school lecture he owns to the presidents of LGAT.[12][13]
資産が最も多かったのは、自民党の渡邉美樹氏で17億580万円、次いで、日本維新の会の藤巻健史氏が6億6870万円、自民党の木村義雄氏が1億2576万円で、資産が1億円を超えているのは5人でした。
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