Alex Saito

Alex Saito has one of the more unusual résumés in the Japanese Diet. He was born in Madrid on 30 June 1985, studied at Doshisha University in Kyoto, and has sat in the House of Representatives since 2021. He entered through the Kinki proportional representation block for the Democratic Party For the People, switched to Ishin no Kai in 2024, and has represented the Shiga 1st district since 2025. Two things stand out to me. First, a Spanish-Japanese legislator is still a rarity in a parliament that remains overwhelmingly homogeneous, and that alone makes his presence worth noting. Second, the shift from a proportional seat to a single-member district is not a formality. Party switches invite fair criticism about consistency, but winning a district requires real local roots, which is a different skill from riding a party list. A man born in Madrid now answers to voters in Shiga — the arc itself is the story, and the verdict depends on what he does with it.

Name (English)

Alex Saito

Name (Japanese)

斎藤アレックス

Reading

斎藤あれっくす

Born

June 30, 1985 (age 41)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Cancer / Ox

Origin

Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain

Occupation

politician

University

Doshisha University

• Official sitehttps://saitoalex.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/alexsaito19/
• Xhttps://x.com/AlexSaito2019
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex%20Saito
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%8E%E8%97%A4%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AC%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q109598958

Tags

• Community of Madrid
• politician

Last updated

2026-08-07

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.