Tanimoto elected to 7th Term as Ishikawa governor

March 12, 2018

Kanazawa, Ishikawa Pref.- Masanori Tanimoto was elected to a seventh four-year term as governor of Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan, on Sunday, handily defeating a first-time candidate.

Among the sitting prefectural governors in Japan, Tanimoto is the only leader to win seven consecutive elections.

In a one-on-one race, Tanimoto, 72, collected 288,531 votes, against 72,414 voters for Emi Kokura, a 65-year-old independent.

Voter turnout stood at 39.07 percent, a record low for a gubernatorial election in Ishikawa.

"Winning seven terms was not my goal as governor," Tanimoto said after the victory. "I've faced the judgment of the residents of the prefecture every four years."

With support from the Social Democratic Party as well as the prefectural chapters of the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and the Democratic Party, Tanimoto secured organized votes. Kokura was backed by the Japanese Communist Party.

Tanimoto attracted broad-based support by playing up his 24-year track record as governor and stressing the need for the continuation of a stable prefectural government.

He pledged efforts to maintain and expand the economic effects of the high-speed train services on the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line from Tokyo, which reached Kanazawa, capital of Kanazawa, in March 2015, by a further extension of the railway line.

Kokura criticized Tanimoto's long rule and called for scrapping Hokuriku Electric Power Co.'s <9505> Shika nuclear power plant in the Ishikawa town of Shika.

But she failed to gain voter support due in part to a lack of preparation. She did not announce her candidacy until late January. Jiji Press