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Tokyo residents vote Sunday to elect a new governor for the Japanese capital with incumbent Yuriko Koike challenged by opposition figure Renho, two prominent women in the country’s male-dominated political sphere.
Japan has never had a woman prime minister and a large majority of lawmakers are men, but Tokyo, accounting for a tenth of the national population and a fifth of the economy, has been run since 2016 by former television anchor Koike, 71.
While few now tout the former defense and environment minister as a possible future prime minister, as many once did, polls suggest that the media-savvy conservative will win a third straight term in the metropolis of 14 million people.
This will be some relief ahead of national elections due by late 2025 to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of deeply unpopular Prime Minister Fumio Kishida who backs Koike, even though she broke away from the LDP in 2017.
