Yamamoto Hanako

Yamamoto Hanako (山本 花子; born 19 January 1961) is a Yamataian politician serving as the current Prime Minister of Yamatai and president of the Yamatai Restoration Party (YRP) since 2016. A member of the Teikoku Gikai, Yamamoto previously served as the Minister of Defence from 2008 to 2012, the Minister of Culture and Communications from 2012 to 2014, and the Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2014 to 2016.

Yamamoto comes from a prominent political family and grew up in Heian. She entered politics and was first elected to the Teikoku Gikai in the 1993 general election, representing the 6th District of Kinai Province as a member of the YRP, which she continues to represent to this day. Yamamoto was appointed to various posts in the cabinets of previous prime ministers Morito Tatsuya and Ishihara Junichiro from 2004 to 2008. In 2009, she was appointed Minister of Defence after Ishihara carried out a cabinet reshuffle. After the YRP again secured victory in the 2012 general election, Yamamoto was appointed the Minister of Culture and Communications, which lasted until Ishihara's 2014 cabinet reshuffle, when she was appointed the Chief Cabinet Secretary.

Long considered a potential future prime minister, Yamamoto ran in the 2016 YRP leadership election, winning against incumbent Ishihara Junichiro and her main opponent Kunidaira Shuuichi. Following the YRP's narrow victory in the 2016 elections, Yamamoto was appointed the Prime Minister of Yamatai.

Yamamoto is a conservative who has been described by various commentators as a right-wing nationalist. She is considered a hard-liner with respect to Arshavat, and advocates increased military spending and HECO cooperation to contain and oppose Arshavat. Yamataian defence spending has consistently remained high duing her terms in office. However, Yamamoto is more moderate on social issues such as LGBT rights and immigration. Yamamoto is known internationally for her government's economic policies, which pursue monetary easing, fiscal stimulus, and structural reforms to make it less difficult for foreign corporations to enter Yamataian markets.

Early life and education
Yamamoto Hanako was born on 19 January 1961 in Morishita, Heian, in the politically prominent Okudera family. The Okudera family has had significant influence throughout Yamataian history since the 19th century. Her great-grandfather was Admiral Okudera Yasaburo, the Governor-General of Kita-Imoshima, and her paternal grandfather, Okudera Gunzo, was the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Yamatai and was a founder of the Yamatai Restoration Party. Yamamoto's father, Okudera Yoshiaki, was also a major figure in the YRP, serving as the Gikai representative of Kinai 3rd District from 1974 as well as several cabinet positions until his retirement in 2007. Her mother, Okudera Mariko (née Takaoka), is a scion of the Takaoka family, which owns the Takaoka Corporation.

Yamamoto studied at Morishita Institution for her Basic, Secondary, and Junior College schooling. The Morishita Institution is an elite private school that counts three Prime Ministers, several government officials, and other major figures of the Yamataian elite among its alumnus. She studied public administration at the National University of Yamatai and graduated with a bachelor's degree with honours in political science in 1983. During this time, Yamamoto was a member of the Youth Outreach Wing of the YRP. She then pursued a master's degree in public policy at the Shimaichi University in Eito for two years, graduating in 1985.

Political career
From 1985, Yamamoto briefly worked in Takaoka Chemical Industries. She left the company in 1987 and began pursuing a number of government positions including executive assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the YRP General Council, and private secretary to the secretary-general.

Yamamoto was elected to the sixth district of Kinai Province in the 1993 general election, winning against her Democratic Party of Yamatai (DPY) opponent by a wide margin. It was widely speculated that her father's faction in the YRP were grooming Yamamoto for eventual prime ministership, with media outlets describing her as a "perfectly engineered politician". However, these rumours died out when the YRP lost the 1997 general elections, though Yamamoto successfully defended her constituency despite strong anti-YRP sentiment following the mishandling of the 1997 Hasukuni earthquake by the preceding Kawamura Hideki government.

In 1999, Yamamoto became the Chairwoman of the YRP Youth Outreach Wing. Yamamoto joined Ishihara Junichiro's faction at some point in the early 2000s, apparently breaking from her father's long-held allegiance to Morito Tatsuya, and in 2002 she became the general secretary of the YRP's Foreign Policy Research Group, considered a stronghold for Ishihara's followers. In 2003, Yamamoto was one of the YRP lawmakers who carried out a walkout of the Gikai following the Mizuno Land Scandal involving DPY cabinet members having cut deals with Gokudo groups.

Cabinet Minister
Following the YRP's victory against the DPY in the 2004 general elections, Yamamoto was appointed Vice Minister of Public Safety under the Morito Tatsuya cabinet. Speculation was that she did not attain a full ministership due to her allegiance to Ishihara Junichiro. Following Morito's resignation due to health issues in 2006 and Ishihara's subsequent victory against Okuma Sho in the bid for YRP leadership, Yamamoto was appointed Vice Cabinet Secretary under Ishihara's new cabinet.

In 2009, Ishihara carried out a controversial cabinet reshuffle, believed by some to have been a move to get rid of ministers in the cabinet who were opposed to a military intervention against Masuka. Yamamoto, considered one of the most vocal supporters of the military intervention, was unsurprisingly appointed as the Minister of Defence. She subsequently oversaw the military operations against Masuka in the 2010 Masukan War in her capacity as Minister of Defence.

Yamamoto supported Ishihara in his bid for reelection as president of the YRP in 2012, and was later appointed the Minister of Culture and Communications in the cabinet formed after the 2012 general elections. Following the 2012 general election, Yamamoto chaired a board of inquiry within the YRP to look into the lower-than-expected number of votes for the YRP, which analysts believed was due to public opposition to the war in Masuka and the subsequent occupation. Leadership of this board of inquiry marked the start of Yamamoto's formation of a new faction within the YRP, attracting many former Morito Tatsuya loyalists as well as allies she had previously made.

A media watchdog group accused Yamamoto in 2013 of unfairly restricting Ministry of Culture grants based on the recipients' political party affiliations. However, the group later withdrew its accusations due to a lack of evidence to support their points. Another cabinet reshuffle was carried out by Ishihara in April 2014, and Yamamoto was appointed as Chief Cabinet Secretary, a politically powerful position that increased her public profile as she began to appear frequently in the media as the spokesperson for the Yamataian Cabinet. Yamamoto used her clout as the Chief Cabinet Secretary to enable her longtime ally Kaise Ikuo to retain his position as Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was believed that Ishihara gave Yamamoto this position to attempt to maintain her loyalty.

However, Yamamoto later announced that she was running for president of the YRP in the 2016 party leadership race. She ran against Ishihara and Kunidaira Shuuichi. The election was largely seen as being between Yamamoto and Kunidaira, as Ishihara's increasingly far-right policies and political gaffes were generally viewed as the main reason for the alienation of Yamataian voters, particularly the younger demographic. Though Kunidaira had the support of much of the YRP "old guard", Yamamoto won the election with 60% of the vote, and assumed presidency of the YRP on 5 October 2016. She proceeded to lead the YRP to a second close victory in the 2016 general election.

First term as Prime Minister
Yamamoto was appointed prime minister by Empress Kazuko on 1 December 2016. Analysts noted that Yamamoto's cabinet was staffed by both experienced YRP heavyweights such as Tsukada Kimito as well as close Yamamoto allies such as Kaise Ikuo and Kikukawa Mariko. Early in her first term, international analysts suggested that Yamamoto's cabinet lacked synergy and that by previously breaking with the party's major factions, she did not have a concrete direction in mind for Yamatai.

In January 2017, Yamamoto gave an address at the Wanshu Development Summit in which she explained her economic and diplomatic objectives. In response to the ongoing Yamataian recession, Yamamoto aimed to carry out monetary expansion aimed at achieving a 2% inflation target, enact a flexible fiscal policy to act as an economic stimulus in the short term, and a growth strategy focusing on structural reform and private sector investment to achieve long-term growth.

Yamamoto also began reversing policies enacted during the Ishihara administration, starting by reversing immigration controls. The Yamamoto cabinet began taking steps to ease immigration and making it easier for foreign workers to find jobs in Yamatai in order to address the shrinking population. Efforts to improve bilateral ties with Yeongseon were also pursued. However, she refused to reduce the defence budget from the high level it had remained at since the 2010 Masukan War.

Under Yamamoto's leadership, Yamatai began to recover slightly from its recession in 2017. In 2018, the Yamamoto cabinet began to enact structural reforms to make it less difficult for foreign corporations to enter Yamataian markets, a move that was not expected by international analysts. An Office of Administrative Reform was also created to clear the Yamataian government processes of the notorious amount of red tape and begin moving governmental functions online. Various laws, particularly sexual assault laws, were modified in 2018 to utilise more gender-ambiguous wording to better protect the rights of gender non-binary people in Yamatai.

Despite her seemingly progressive policies, Yamamoto has also been noted to hold right-wing nationalist views, and is believed to be an advocate for historical revisionism. She is also alleged to maintain close ties to the Yamataian military-industrial complex. Notably, certain "strategic industries" have been increasingly exempted from pro-competition legislation.

In January 2019, an informal poll showed that Yamamoto was one of the most popular Prime Ministers in recent Yamataian history. She is known for her skill at using social media such as Kimimono to connect with the people, and also often carries out walkabouts in her constituency despite her busy schedule as Prime Minister.

Second term as Prime Minister
In 2020, Yamamoto was reelected as president of the YRP. Yamamoto and the YRP won the 2020 general election with a landslide vote, a vast improvement over the 2015 election, signalling the revitalisation of the YRP. Party analysts attribute this victory to Yamamoto's success in reaching the young voter demographic, which had previously been considered out of reach for the YRP due to its right-wing stance.

In her second term, Yamamoto sought to improve cross-Varunan ties with Gyunghwa, proposing a Trans-Varunan Partnership that would lower both non-tariff and tariff barriers to trade in both countries and enable easier trade across the Varunan Ocean region. Yamamoto's cabinet also negotiated for the overhaul and renovation of many military facilities used by the Yamataian Mainland Defence Force troops stationed in Chisei.

Personal life
Yamamoto is married to Yamamoto Saigo, a former television host and comedian from Niihama. The couple got married in 1996, and have two children, Yamamoto Haruki, and Yamamoto Toru. Yamamoto Haruki is a captain in the Yamatai Imperial Army, commanding an anti-ship missile battery. Yamamoto Toru is currently studying public policy in the National University of Yamatai. Yamamoto's older brother, Okudera Haruki, is the president and CEO of Mitsuhishi Chemical Engineering Solutions, while her younger brother, Okudera Hiroto, is a restaurateur in Niihama.

Yamamoto is an avid user of social media and often posts photos of her life on Kimimono, occasionally interacting with her followers. She enjoys an active lifestyle and goes for jogs at Ishibashi Waterfront Park in Ishibashi every morning, when she has the time. She also practices aikido in her free time, and her favourite foods are and Amphian-style cakes.

Her husband, Yamamoto Saigo, is a major fan of the Aizawa Itachizame football team. He was gifted the football that the team scored the Yamatai National Tournament -winning goal with in 2015 for his great support and promotion efforts for the team.