Why the Okinawa election outcome may weaken PM Abe’s grip on power
Experts believe the prime minister’s administration will push ahead with the relocation of a controversial US army base, even though Okinawan people expressed their strong opposition to it years ago
The defeat of a candidate backed by Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party in Sunday’s Okinawa gubernatorial race could weaken Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s dominance in his administration following his less than convincing victory in the party’s recent leadership contest.
It will also likely have an impact on Abe’s efforts to generate momentum toward a series of gubernatorial and other local elections next spring and the House of Councillors election next summer, and even affect his constitutional amendment drive, observers said.
The result of the election in Okinawa, held following the death last month of Takeshi Onaga, a staunch opponent of a plan to move a key US Marine base within the prefecture, is likely to further complicate the relocation, although the Okinawa government is seen as having only limited options to resist the move.
Whether voters would back a candidate campaigning as Onaga’s political heir was the focal point of the election, said Jun Shimabukuro, professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa versed in Okinawa local autonomy.
Repeating his opposition to the plan to move the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a densely populated area of Ginowan to the less populated district of Henoko in Nago, the newly elected Denny Tamaki, a 58-year-old former opposition lawmaker, had insisted he was the “successor to Onaga”.