In 2006, he applied for the Liberal Democratic Party’s open recruitment for a by-election in Chiba’s 7th district for the House of Representatives. He was selected from among 221 candidates and ran with the party’s official endorsement. During the by-election, the campaign slogan "Saisho wa guu! Saito Ken!" delivered by LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe and others gained significant attention, but Saito was defeated by a narrow margin of 955 votes by Kazumi Ota of the Democratic Party of Japan.[1] Saito was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in the 2009 election.[2][3]
Diet member and minister
Saito was a member of the Ishiba faction, led by Shigeru Ishiba, who was critical of the Abe administration.[4] He served as minister of agriculture in the Abe Cabinet from August 2017 to October 2018.[4] In this position, he continued to keep a tariff on foreign beef.[5]
Saito entered the Kishida Cabinet as minister of justice in November 2022, after the former minister resigned due to a gaffe. Saito was at the forefront of advancing a revised immigration law, which sought to overhaul the asylum process. The revision was opposed by the CDP, which submitted a censure motion against Saito on 6 June 2023 in order to delay it.[3][6] The motion of censure was rejected and the revision passed. Saito left cabinet in September 2023 due to a reshuffle.
After two months he returned to cabinet as industry minister, after the previous minister resigned. Saito oversaw the expansion of Japan's semiconductor industry, through government subsidies to companies.[3][7]
In August 2024, after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed his intention not to seek another term an LDP presidential election, Saito expressed interest in running for the presidency. He withdrew on September 11, having been unable to gather the twenty diet members necessary to be nominated.[3][8]
