Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura and Osaka city Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama were reelected in snap local elections Sunday night, setting the stage for an effort to hold a third referendum on merging Osaka city¡¯s wards into a Tokyo-like government structure.
The elections were called by Yoshimura, who is also the leader of the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), to gain public support for another merger referendum, long a key goal of the Osaka-centric party.
It was a decisive victory for both incumbents. Yoshimura won more than 3 million votes, beating two independents who opposed the merger referendum. Second-place finisher Tsuneki Ohnishi garnered only 452,807 votes while Tatsumo Natto won just 155,855.
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