Ruling Camp-Backed Candidate Wins Niigata Governor Poll

June 11, 2018

Niigata- A candidate supported by the Japanese ruling coalition won a closely watched gubernatorial election on Sunday, possibly providing a tailwind to the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toward key political events later this year and in 2019.

In the gubernatorial election in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, Hideyo Hanazumi, 60, an independent candidate backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its Komeito ally, defeated independent Chikako Ikeda, 57, supported by five opposition parties, and Satoshi Annaka, 40, also an independent.

The election was viewed effectively as a one-on-one contest between Hanazumi and Ikeda, and as a de facto battle between the ruling coalition and the opposition camp.

The victory of Hanazumi is likely to be a plus for Abe, also president of the LDP, and the ruling camp, ahead of the LDP's leadership election this autumn, a series of local polls next year and an election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament, also in 2019, political watchers said. Abe is apparently aiming to win a third term as head of the LDP in the autumn election.

Meanwhile, the defeat of Ikeda is a blow to the opposition side, which has grilled the Abe government over alleged favoritism for school operators Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Educational Institution. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and other opposition parties will likely be forced to overhaul their cooperation strategy toward the local elections and the Upper House poll, pundits said.

Voter turnout in Sunday's election stood at 58.25 pct, up from 53.05 pct in the previous Niigata gubernatorial election in October 2016.

Hanazumi, former deputy head of the Japan Coast Guard and a native of Niigata Prefecture, won his first term as governor of the prefecture, garnering 546,670 votes in the election.

Ikeda, backed by the CDPJ, the Democratic Party for the People, the Japanese Communist Party, the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, collected 509,568 votes, only some 37,000 less than what Hanazumi gained. She was a former member of the Niigata prefectural assembly.

Annaka, a former member of the assembly of the city of Gosen in the prefecture, had 45,628 votes.

"I promise to enliven Niigata and make it a place where people can live comfortably," Hanazumi said, upon winning the election.

The election came after Ryuichi Yoneyama quit as Niigata governor in April this year over affairs with women.

At issue in the election were whether reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station in the prefecture should be reactivated and how to regain local people's trust in the prefectural administration following Yoneyama's resignation, which came two and a half years before the expiration of his four-year term as Niigata governor.

Over the nuclear plant issue, Hanazumi showed during his election campaign the idea of first making his decision on whether to permit or reject the reactor restart if he is elected and then stepping down as governor and holding a fresh gubernatorial election to seek voter judgment on his decision.

He also vowed to promote tourism and improve the public transport infrastructure in the prefecture.

Ikeda called for a prefectural referendum to be held to ask local people whether they approve or disapprove of the reactor restart. Ikeda also asked voters to help her be elected as the first female governor of Niigata.

During the campaign period, senior officials of the opposition parties that supported Ikeda visited Niigata to seek voter support for her while criticizing the Abe administration and the LDP-led ruling coalition. But she ended up being the close runner-up in the election.

Hanazumi entered the former Transport Ministry, now the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, in 1982. He became vice commandant of the Japan Coast Guard in September 2015 after serving as head of the Japan Tourism Agency's General Affairs Division and vice governor of Niigata.

Hanazumi is expected to face the need to carefully handle the nuclear issue.

He has expressed his readiness to take over a panel set up by Yoneyama for an investigation of the March 2011 severe accident at TEPCO's disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the northeastern prefecture of Fukushima.

While the Japanese government's draft basic energy program regards nuclear energy as one of the country's baseload power sources, opinion polls have shown that Niigata locals' opposition to the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear reactors remains strong.

Following the Niigata election, the ruling coalition is expected to accelerate efforts to put a host of problems facing the Abe administration, including the favoritism scandals, to an end and enact pending important bills during the current ordinary Diet session.

"We'll work hard to support the administration, without becoming arrogant," LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai told reporters at the LDP's headquarters in Tokyo on Sunday.

The prime minister's side hopes that the victory of the ruling coalition-backed candidate in the Niigata race will help shore up the slumping public support for the Abe cabinet.

Noting, however, that Hanazumi defeated opposition-backed Ikeda with only a small margin, analysts said that the ruling parties could face a public backlash if they try to push ahead with Diet business in a high-handed manner. Jiji Press