With the death of Governor Onaga, will a new political consensus emerge on the Futenma relocation question?
Takeshi Onaga, who as governor of Okinawa led a campaign to reduce the U. S. military presence on the islands, passed away at a hospital in Urasoe on August 8. He had been struggling with stage 2 pancreatic cancer.
Onaga was elected governor in November 2014 on a pledge to block plans to relocate a U. S. Marine Corps air station in Futenma, Ginowan, to Henoko, Nago, a less dense part of the island. Since he took office, Onaga filed a series of lawsuits against the Japanese government, seeking a court injunction to stop landfill at the planned relocation site in Henoko. In December 2016, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled against Onaga’s decision to withdraw his predecessor’s approval of the current Futenma relocation plan. In April 2017, the Japanese government finally began the construction of a new base. Until recently, Onaga was preparing another legal action in order to make the original approval invalid from its inception.
In addition to the unsuccessful legal battles, the political climate in Okinawa has not necessarily been in favor of Onaga and his political allies of anti-base movements. At the local level, anti-base candidates have lost in most key elections including Ginowan, Urasoe, Uruma, Miyakojima, Yaese, Ishigaki, and Okinawa city. In February 2018, the incumbent Nago mayor Susumu Iwamine, who received strong support from Onaga and anti-base movement, was defeated by a challenger who was endorsed by pro-Henoko relocation forces.
