Date of birth: Feb. 9, 1939

Party: Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party)

Electoral district: Lower House; Kagoshima No. 3 (fifth term)

Matsushita succeeds Shozaburo Jimi, allowing ruling coalition partner Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) to keep its sole ministerial seat. He was seen as the driving force behind postal reform rollback legislation, which cleared the Diet in April.

A Kyoto University graduate from Kagoshima Prefecture, Matsushita started his career in 1962 at the then Construction Ministry. He first entered the Lower House as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1993.

Under the Junichiro Koizumi administration in 2001, Matsushita served as senior vice economic minister. In 2005, he left the LDP and lost his seat after he refused to back Koizumi's postal privatization legislation. He returned to the Lower House in 2009 with Kokumin Shinto, whose key goal is to dilute Koizumi's postal privatization plan.