The defeat of a candidate backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Sunday’s Okinawa gubernatorial race could weaken Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s dominance in his administration following his less than convincing victory in the party’s recent leadership contest. It will also likely have an impact on
The defeat of a candidate backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Sunday’s Okinawa gubernatorial race could weaken Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s dominance in his administration following his less than convincing victory in the party’s recent leadership contest.
It will also likely have an impact on Abe’s efforts to generate momentum toward a series of gubernatorial and other local elections next spring and the House of Councillors election next summer, and even affect his constitutional amendment drive, observers said.
The result of the election in Okinawa, held following the death last month of Takeshi Onaga, who was a staunch opponent of a plan to move a key U. S. Marine base within the prefecture, is likely to further complicate the relocation, although the Okinawa government is seen as having only limited options to resist the move.
Whether voters would back a candidate campaigning as Onaga’s political heir was the focal point of the election, said Jun Shimabukuro, professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa versed in Okinawa local autonomy.
Repeating his opposition to the plan to move the U. S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a densely populated area of Ginowan to the less populated district of Henoko in Nago, the newly elected Denny Tamaki, a 58-year-old former opposition lawmaker, had insisted he was the «successor to Onaga.»
Shimabukuro said Onaga’s death played a role in making many Okinawans «realize the importance of the base issue again,» and that this factor gave Tamaki the edge in what was widely thought to be a neck-and-neck battle.
