Osaka to hold double elections over Metropolis Plan

March 9, 2019

Osaka--The heads of Osaka Prefecture and the city of Osaka on Friday offered to resign from the posts, before their present terms of office expire late this year, and decided to seek reelection, in the other's current position, in order to seek voter support for their "Osaka metropolis" plan.

Osaka Governor Ichiro Matsui and Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura submitted their resignations to the chiefs of the Osaka prefectural and municipal assemblies, respectively.

In their letters of resignation, the two said that they will quit on March 20, after the end of the assemblies' ongoing sessions, where fiscal 2019 draft budgets for the prefecture and its capital city are now being discussed.

At a meeting of Osaka Ishin no Kai, a regional political party, on Friday, Matsui, leader of the party, and Yoshimura, its policy chief, announced their intentions to run in the subsequent Osaka mayoral and gubernatorial elections, respectively.

The polls will likely take place on April 7, when the first round of unified local elections will be held across Japan, including elections for the Osaka prefectural and municipal assemblies.

Matsui and Yoshimura decided to hold such unusual double elections after Osaka Ishin, at Thursday's meeting of a key council on the Osaka metropolis project, failed to win support from the Komeito party for holding a local referendum on the project in autumn this year.

"We will aim to win public support for the metropolis plan in the gubernatorial, mayoral, prefectural assembly and municipal assembly polls," Matsui said at a press conference on Friday.

He said Osaka Ishin aims to win a single-party majority in the prefectural and municipal assemblies.

Osaka Ishin had been seeking cooperation from Komeito to realize the Osaka metropolis project, as the former currently lacks the majority on its own at both assemblies. In national politics, Komeito is the coalition partner of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

The metropolis plan calls for realigning the city of Osaka into four special wards to eliminate redundancy in administrative services provided by the prefecture and the city. A similar metropolis project was rejected in a referendum conducted in May 2015.

The current terms of office for the governor and the mayor are due to expire on Nov. 26 and Dec. 18, respectively. If Matsui and Yoshimura were to win reelection in their present positions in the April polls, their new terms would end at the expiry of their current terms, forcing another round of gubernatorial and mayoral elections.

If they succeed in switching positions through the elections, their new terms of office will be four years.

At the press conference, Matsui said that the envisaged switch will help curb the use of taxpayers' money for elections.

Referring to the relationship between Osaka Ishin and Komeito, Matsui said his party intends to field rival candidates against Komeito in national elections. Jiji Press