Governor, mayor may switch posts in Osaka elections

February 4, 2019

Osaka--Ichiro Matsui, governor of Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, has indicated the possibility of him and Hirofumi Yoshimura, mayor of the city of Osaka, running in Osaka mayoral and gubernatorial elections, respectively, if the polls are moved up to take place on the same date as part of a series of nationwide local elections in April.

Matsui, who heads Osaka Ishin no Kai, and Yoshimura, policy chief of the regional political party, are apparently considering moving up the elections to April from late this year, as they aim to realize their plan to reorganize the administration of Osaka.

The current term of office for Matsui is set to end in November this year and that of Yoshimura the following month.

Matsui told reporters in the city of Osaka, the capital of the prefecture, on Sunday that if the elections are front-loaded to April and if he runs in the gubernatorial election and Yoshimura in the mayoral poll and they win the races, elections for the posts of governor and mayor must be held again later this year.

This "could contradict our principle" of making effective use of taxpayer money, he said.

Yoshimura separately told reporters in the city on Sunday that it would be difficult to gain local people's understanding for the idea of using taxpayer money for holding both gubernatorial and mayoral elections twice in a year.

If Matsui and Yoshimura run in the possibly front-loaded polls to seek reelection to their present posts and achieve victories, their new terms of office would run only until the dates of expiration of their current terms--Nov. 26 for the governor and Dec. 18 for the mayor--forcing a new round of elections before the expirations.

But the governor and the mayor successfully run for the mayoralty and the governorship, respectively, their new terms of office would be four years. Jiji Press