The confrontation between the central and Okinawa prefectural governments will likely be prolonged with Denny Tamaki, an opponent of the central government's plan to relocate a U.S. military base within the prefecture, winning the Okinawa gubernatorial election on Sunday. The prospect of the relocation plan is increasingly unclear.
"I pledge to take over the foundation established by former Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga," Tamaki said Sunday night in Naha, while performing the Okinawa kachashi dance with his supporters to celebrate.
During the election campaign, Tamaki relied on Onaga's popularity. Tamaki decided that the unity of the All Okinawa group, which consists of conservatives and reformists and had supported Onaga to become governor, was weak. In the latter stage of the campaign he therefore began appealing to voters that he was the successor to Onaga, who had died suddenly.
Onaga's wife Mikiko and second eldest son Takeharu, a member of the Naha Municipal Assembly, joined Tamaki's rally and made speeches for him.
Tamaki himself told reporters about his true feelings, saying, "I receive much bigger applause when I say, 'I will carry on the will of the former governor' than when talking about my policy pledges."
At the end of August, the Okinawa prefectural government revoked a permit for land reclamation in the Henoko district to respect Onaga's will. During the campaign, Tamaki clearly said he would support this decision.
Tamaki is likely to fully use the authority of the prefectural governor to resist the central government. For example, he will not give special collection permission that is necessary for the transfer of coral reefs in the Henoko district or approve construction design changes, among other measures.
While the current central government's plan aims to complete the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Ginowan to the Henoko district of Nago, both in Okinawa Prefecture, by 2022 at the earliest, it is already two or three years behind schedule, according to a senior Defense Ministry official. It is possible the plan will be further delayed under the new governor.
Resumption of construction
The central government has suspended the relocation work since the revocation of the landfill permit. However, it plans to push forward with the relocation, irrespective of the election result.
To resume the relocation work, the central government will shortly file a lawsuit demanding the nullification of the prefecture's revocation. At the same time, in order to invalidate the revocation until a ruling is given, the central government will apply to the court for a stay of execution.
Within the central government, many believe that it will be possible to obtain a stay of execution in several weeks or about a month, while some officials within the Okinawa prefectural government say, they will not be able to win such a lawsuit if it is filed.
Onaga, who pledged to stop the relocation and became Okinawa governor in 2014, intensified the confrontation with the central government by revoking the landfill permit given by former Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, among other actions. There have been a total of five lawsuits contested between the central and Okinawa prefectural governments on the matter. In December 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal for Onaga to revoke the landfill permit issued by Nakaima, rejecting Onaga's assertion.
Difficult management
Like Onaga, Tamaki has not presented an alternative plan for a relocation destination for Futenma air base. He plans to resolve the issue through negotiations with the United States. However, given the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed that relocating the base to the Henoko district was the only solution, such negotiations will likely face difficulties.
If the prefecture considers a plan to relocate the Futenma air base outside the prefecture, it is highly likely to be deadlocked. The Cabinet of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who led the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan, caused confusion by pledging to at least relocate the base to outside the prefecture. In the end, it failed to find a relocation destination outside the prefecture and returned to the original plan of relocating it to the Henoko district.
While the central government provides Okinawa Prefecture with lump-sum grants, which the prefecture can decide how to use, the amount was cut for four years under the leadership of Onaga. The central government plans to allocate 300 billion yen-level grants every year for the development and promotion of Okinawa Prefecture by fiscal 2021, while the period of the central government's commitment to providing these grants will end during Tamaki's term of office. Tamaki will likely face difficulties managing the prefectural government in terms of finance.
Huge blow to ruling bloc
By Masakazu Matsushita
Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
The ruling parties put all their energy into the election campaign, just like national elections, by sending senior officials to the prefecture. Now they hope to minimize the damage caused by Atsushi Sakima's defeat.
"It's disappointing, but it cannot be helped," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday night over the phone with a senior member of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Abe was recently reelected to a third-straight term in the recent LDP presidential election. "We should not make him lose face," a senior LDP member said.
LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai, Chief Deputy Secretary General Shinjiro Koizumi and others visited Okinawa Prefecture many times, while Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga supported Sakima, which was quite unusual support in a local election. Since some LDP members saw the gubernatorial election as a prelude to foretelling next summer's House of Councillors election, senior LDP members have expressed their disappointment.
On the other hand, some say the effects of the latest defeat will be limited. Ryu Shionoya, LDP election strategy committee chief, was asked by reporters about the election's impact on the management of government at the party headquarters on Sunday night. "I don't think there will be any direct impact," he said. Opinion polls conducted by media outlets after the LDP presidential election show the approval rating for the Abe Cabinet is recovering, a fact that apparently backs such views about the impact.
Abe plans to get the LDP back on its feet by emphasizing a refreshed image through a reshuffle of Cabinet and LDP executives to be carried out on Tuesday.
The latest election result will likely give a boost to opposition parties that indirectly supported Tamaki. "It is of great significance. We would like to accelerate efforts to cooperate with other opposition parties for the upper house election," said a senior member of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.
In the June Niigata gubernatorial election, an opposition candidate sought voters' support, stressing that she was backed by political parties, but was eventually defeated. Given this, senior officials of opposition parties refrained from giving stump speeches next to Tamaki in Sunday's election, and took a strategy of not overemphasizing the fact that he was supported by political parties, which seemed to have contributed to Tamaki's victory.
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