LDP-backed candidate wins Hokkaido governor race

April 8, 2019

Tokyo--A candidate backed by the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan's ruling party in national politics, won Sunday's gubernatorial election in Hokkaido, part of the first round of quadrennial unified local elections in the country.

In the election, Naomichi Suzuki, a 38-year-old former mayor of Yubari, a city in the northernmost Japan prefecture, defeated Tomohiro Ishikawa, 45, who is a former lawmaker of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, and was a unified candidate of five opposition parties including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Suzuki will be the youngest among the current governors in Japan. Suzuki, also backed by Komeito, the coalition partner of the LDP, garnered 1,621,171 votes, against 963,942 votes for Ishikawa.

"I will lead the efforts to carve out a new era for Hokkaido," Suzuki said at his campaign office in the Hokkaido capital of Sapporo.

A host of challenges await him, including the declining local population and a review of the operations of loss-making lines of Hokkaido Railway Co., or JR Hokkaido.

Meanwhile, LDP-backed candidates were defeated by Osaka Ishin no Kai's candidates in the gubernatorial election in Osaka Prefecture and the mayoral poll in the city of Osaka. In the contests, the key issue was whether to reorganize the city, the capital of the western prefecture, into four special districts as proposed by the regional party.

In the first round of the unified local elections on Sunday, Japan had gubernatorial elections in 11 of the nation's 47 prefectures, mayoral elections in six of the 20 ordinance-designated big cities, and assembly elections in 41 prefectures and 17 ordinance-designated cities.

The series of local polls are closely watched as a precursor to the triennial election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, this summer. The second round of unified local elections will take place on April 21.

Unified local elections and an Upper House election are held in the same year in a phenomenon taking place once every 12 years, in the Year of the Boar in the 12-year Chinese zodiac cycle.

The LDP's defeat in the Osaka elections raised concerns within the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who doubles as head of the party, over the Upper House election and two Lower House by-elections--one in Osaka Prefecture and the other in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa--on April 21, analysts said.

Opposition parties face the need to rebuild their cooperation for the Upper House election, following the defeat of their unified candidate in the Hokkaido gubernatorial election, they said.

The LDP failed to consolidate candidates in four gubernatorial elections, in Fukuoka, Shimane, Fukui and Tokushima.

In Fukuoka, incumbent Governor Hiroshi Ogawa, 69, won a third term, beating former Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry official Kazuhisa Takeuchi, 47, recommended by the LDP's Tokyo headquarters in line with the wish of Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso. Ogawa had support from prefectural assembly members and some Diet members of the LDP.

In Shimane, Tatsuya Maruyama, 49, a former official of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, who was supported by prefectural assembly members of the LDP, defeated a candidate backed by the Tokyo headquarters. Maruyama was elected for the first time.

Meanwhile, Tatsuji Sugimoto, 56, backed by the LDP headquarters, won his first term, outdoing incumbent Fukui Governor Issei Nishikawa, 74. Nishikawa was backed by prefectural assembly members of the LDP.

In Tokushima, incumbent Governor Kamon Iizumi, 58, supported by the LDP's prefectural chapter, secured a fifth term.

In the other gubernatorial races, incumbents won in Kanagawa, Mie, Nara, Tottori and Oita prefectures. Incumbent mayors scored victories in the cities of Sapporo, Shizuoka, Hamamatsu and Hiroshima.

In the assembly elections in the 41 prefectures, the LDP won over half of the total of 2,277 seats up for grabs, as it did in prefectural assembly elections held as part of the previous unified local polls in 2015.

This time, the party secured 1,158 seats.

Among other parties, Komeito won 166 seats, the CDPJ 118, the Japanese Communist Party 99, the Democratic Party for the People 83, the Social Democratic Party 22, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) 16 and other parties including Osaka Ishin 79, while 536 seats were won by independent candidates.

A total of 3,062 people ran in the prefectural assembly elections.

The number of women elected to the prefectural assemblies hit a record high of 237, eclipsing the previous all-time high of 207 four years ago.

The proportion of the elected women in the total successful candidates came to 10.4 pct, also the highest on record. The unified local elections are the first since the law for promoting gender equality in the political field took effect in May last year.

In the assembly elections in the 17 ordinance-designated cities, the LDP obtained 327 seats, Komeito 171, the JCP 115, the CDPJ 99, the DPFP 33, Nippon Ishin 16, the SDP four and other parties including Osaka Ishin 91. Independents won 156 seats.

Voter turnout in the prefectural assembly elections stood at a record low of 44.08 pct on average, compared with the 45.05 pct in 2015, which was the previous all-time low.

The rate hit record lows in 33 of the 41 prefectures. Seven prefectures--Saitama, Chiba, Aichi, Hyogo, Hiroshima, Kagawa and Miyazaki--saw readings of below 40 pct.

The average voter turnout in the gubernatorial elections in the 11 prefectures came to 47.72 pct, up 0.58 percentage point from 2015, when unified gubernatorial elections were held in 10 prefectures, excluding Osaka. But voter turnout fell to record lows in Hokkaido, Kanagawa, Tottori and Oita. Jiji Press