NAGO, OKINAWA PREF. ¨C The incumbent mayor and two challengers filed their candidacies on Sunday for the Jan. 25 mayoral election in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, which will focus on the planned relocation of a U.S. military base to the city¡¯s Henoko coastal area.
The election comes in the run-up to a House of Representatives election expected next month as well as an Okinawa gubernatorial election, as the current governor¡¯s term ends in September.
The Nago election will effectively be a one-on-one battle between incumbent Taketoyo Toguchi, who is seeking a third term, and former city assembly member Kumiko Onaga.
Toguchi, 64, is backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the Japan Innovation Party, the Democratic Party for the People and Komeito, while Onaga, 69, is endorsed by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party.
Onaga is also supported by the ¡°All Okinawa¡± camp, which opposes transferring the functions of the U.S. Marine Corps¡¯ Futenma air base in Ginowan, also in Okinawa, to Henoko.
In her first campaign speech on Sunday, Onaga criticized Toguchi¡¯s reliance on state subsidies for U.S. military realignment, saying, ¡°I will put an end to politics that ignore the city residents.¡±
Toguchi, in his speech, highlighted his partnership with the central government on regional development, promising to ¡°improve the lives of city residents with support from the state.¡±
As in the previous two elections, Toguchi made no mention of the base relocation issue.
The other candidate, Katsuya Iha, a 67-year-old tutoring school manager, opposes the base relocation.
It will be the eighth mayoral election in Nago in which the Henoko base relocation is questioned.
While voters in Okinawa have occasionally rejected the base relocation within the prefecture, the central government began landfill work at the planned base site in Nago seven years ago.
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