Tomoko Abe

Tomoko Abe (阿部 知子, Abe Tomoko, born 24 April 1948) is a Japanese politician and member of the House of Representatives. She was formerly the policy chief of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a small centre-left political party, and later the president and sole member of the short-lived Tomorrow Party of Japan.

Abe is also a leader of a group of lawmakers called Energy Shift Japan, who are pushing the government to consider alternatives to nuclear power subsequent to the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in March 2011. Abe and Energy Shift Japan are backing a proposal to give green energy sources access to Japan's power grid.

She quit the SDP shortly before the 2012 general election^[1] and joined the TPJ, founded by governor of Shiga Prefecture Yukiko Kada. The party performed poorly in the election and all the remaining diet members save Abe quit the party, meaning that the TPJ could not maintain official party status in the diet, which requires five members. Abe and Kada sounded out Green Wind, which has four diet members, over a possible merger, but the talks were not successful.^[2] The Tomorrow Party was legally dissolved in May 2013. She is now a member of the Democratic Party.^[3]

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