 Kan Abe

Born into a family of brewers of soy sauce and sake who were landlords in the area of Heki (now part of the city of Nagato) in Yamaguchi Prefecture, he graduated from Tokyo Imperial University, the predecessor of the University of Tokyo.Abe stood as a Seiyūkai Party candidate in the February 1928 general election but lost; he was appointed village mayor of Heki in 1933 and later served in the Yamaguchi prefectural assembly.