[4] He served as Minister of Finance in the cabinets of Morihiro Hosokawa and Tsutomu Hata, and did not substantially change the previous LDP government's financial policy objectives.

[5] Fujii was a member of Ichiro Ozawa's Liberal Party during the late 1990s, and served as its secretary-general and headed its financial committee while it was in a coalition government with the LDP.

In the run-up to the 2009 general election, he led a campaign to stop Ozawa from becoming the president and prime ministerial candidate of the DPJ.

The DPJ won the election in a landslide, and Fujii maintained a seat in the House despite being ranked only 35th on the party's candidate list.

[10] Fujii also reversed his historical position on the consumption tax, and demanded the appointment of two vice ministers, Yoshihiko Noda and Naoki Minezaki, who were in favor of raising it.

Fujii had been suffering from high blood pressure and exhaustion, so he claimed that his deteriorating health forced him to resign from the high-stress position of finance minister.