elected party president Yasuo Fukuda. He was subsequently appointed as minister of construction and transport on 1 August 2008. Opposition leader (2009-2012) On 28 September 2009, he was elected by his party as LDP leader to replace former prime minister Tarō Asō after the Democratic Party of Japan achieved a landslide election result in the 2009 general election and took government from the LDP. In the early period of the Democratic Party of Japan government, Tanigaki frequently condemned the DPJ for advocating for a rise in the sales taxes by 5 percent, in spite of the enormous, problematic national deficit, and despite his own past calls to increase the tax. To gain a potential legislative LDP-coalition majority, he attempted an unsuccessful no-confidence motion against Naoto Kan in June 2011, after refusing Kan's earlier offers of a grand coalition. In 2012, the LDP under Tanigaki worked with prime minister Yoshihiko Noda of the ruling DPJ to pass an increase in the consumption tax from the current 5% to 8% in April 2014 and 10% in October 2015. He agreed not to introduce a no-confidence motion or a censure motion against Noda, in return for Noda's promise to hold elections "soon." On 28 August 2012, soon after the consumption tax bills were passed through the diet a censure motion was passed by the LDP and the New Komeito Party against Prime Minister Noda. The opposition parties were to boycott debate in the chamber, meaning that new bills passed in the DPJ-controlled House of Representatives could not be enacted. Tanigaki had expected to be re-elected as LDP head unopposed in 2012, but former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and several others suggested that they could run against him. He lost the party election to Abe on 26 September 2012. As a result, he became only the second LDP leader, after Yōhei Kōno (1993–1995), who never served as Prime Minister. Abe government (2012-2016) Following the LDP's victory in the 2012 general election, Abe appointed his three rivals from the LDP leadership contest to cabinet posts, with Tanigaki serving as Minister of Justice. Abe appointed Tanigaki to serve as LDP Secretary-General in September 2014, placing Tanigaki in charge of the party's campaign strategy. In this post, Tanigaki continued to have weekly meetings with Abe, in which he provided constructive criticism of Abe's policy agenda. He agreed not to stand against Abe in the 2015 LDP leadership