Tamaki, Sakima in Close Race for Okinawa Governor: Jiji Survey

September 26, 2018

Naha, Okinawa Pref.- Two major candidates Denny Tamaki and Atsushi Sakima are in a close contest for the governorship of Okinawa Prefecture, southernmost Japan, a Jiji Press survey found Tuesday.

The gubernatorial election, slated for Sunday, is a de facto duel between Tamaki, a former House of Representatives member, and Sakima, former mayor of Ginowan, an Okinawa city. The survey was conducted chiefly with campaign officials and political parties.

Tamaki, 58, backed by the so-called All Okinawa camp, including the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party, promotes himself as the successor to the late Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga.

Onaga, who died of disease in August, rejected a central government plan to build a new U.S. military base in the Henoko coastal area in Nago, also Okinawa, to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air base in Ginowan.

In addition to supporters of the JCP and SDP, Tamaki is drumming up support in Naha, Okinawa's capital, the electoral power base of Onaga.

Sakima, 54, is backed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party).

He served for two terms totaling six years as Ginowan mayor. But he apparently needs to make himself better known among residents in other areas in the prefecture.

As of Sunday, 95,143 residents, or 8 pct of all voters in the prefecture, had voted early, up from some 54,000 in the previous election four years ago.

With powerful Typhoon Trami, the 24th of the year, forecast to approach Okinawa around Sunday, both the Tamaki and Sakima camps are asking residents to use the early voting system.

There are two other candidates--former Naha municipal assembly member Hatsumi Toguchi, 83, and former company employee Shun Kaneshima, 40. The survey found that both are struggling. Jiji Press