members abstaining and two others having cast invalid votes. Maehara was appointed DPJ president on 17 September 2005. However, Maehara's term as party leader was short lived. Although he initially led the party's criticism of the Koizumi administration, particularly in regards to connections between LDP lawmakers and scandal-ridden Livedoor, the revelation that a fake email was used to try to establish this link greatly damaged his credibility. The scandal led to the resignation of Representative Hisayasu Nagata and of Maehara as party leader on 31 March. New elections for party leader were held on 7 April, in which Ichirō Ozawa was elected president. Cabinet In the 2009 Japanese general election, the Democratic Party won a two-thirds majority of the House of Representatives, allowing the party to form a new government. Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Maehara was appointed Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on 16 September 2009. In this role, he was the spokesman for a number of government initiatives, including: Cessation of construction work on Yamba Dam Opening Haneda Airport in Tokyo to long-haul international flights Bankruptcy restructuring of Japan Airlines Experimentation with reducing or eliminating tolls on the Japanese expressway network Minister of Foreign Affairs Then Prime Minister Naoto Kan reshuffled the cabinet effective 17 September 2010, making Maehara the youngest Minister of Foreign Affairs in postwar Japanese history. The main international relations event during his tenure as foreign minister was the 2010 Senkaku boat collision incident, which led to increased tensions between Japan and the People's Republic of China concerning their overlapping claims to the Senkaku Islands. Resignation from the Cabinet In March 2011, only four days before the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, Maehara resigned as Minister for Foreign Affairs after it emerged that he had accepted a political donation of ¥250,000 (approx. US$3,000) from a 72-year-old South Korean permanent resident of Japan who operated a restaurant in Kyoto. Maehara had known the woman since junior high school, but her foreign nationality made the donation illegal if it had been accepted intentionally. Maehara apologised to the nation for only holding the post for 6 months and for "provoking distrust" over his political funding. According to the Japan Times, the resignation would cause Japanese relations with the United States to weaken. The donation was revealed by an opposing party politician, Shoji Nishida; The Economist described the incident as a scandal based on a technicality that