Opposition-backed candidate wins Shizuoka governorship

Shizuoka, May 26 (Jiji Press) – A candidate backed by a major Japanese opposition party was elected governor of Shizuoka Prefecture on Sunday. He defeated five contenders, including one backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Yasutomo Suzuki, a 66-year-old independent who previously served as mayor of Shizuoka’s Hamamatsu city, won the governorship of the central Japanese prefecture for the first time after campaigning on promises to strengthen Shizuoka’s industry.

Suzuki, backed by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and another opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, once served in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Japan’s parliament, as a member of the CDP’s predecessor before joining Hamamatsu was elected mayor.

The defeat of LDP-backed independent candidate Shinichi Omura, the 60-year-old former deputy governor of Shizuoka who once worked for the Ministry of Interior, is another blow to the ruling party, which lost three parliamentary by-elections last month . , and could impact the fortunes of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government.

The gubernatorial election took place to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of former Shizuoka Governor Heita Kawakatsu, who had been in office for fifteen years.

The stakes of the race were whether the construction of a planned magnetic levitation line would be allowed in the prefecture. Kawakatsu had opposed the construction, citing a possible impact on the environment.

Suzuki, a proponent of the maglev, has said he would seriously consider ways to address challenges related to the maglev project.

Omura is also a supporter of the project. His loss was partly due to a high-profile political fund scandal involving the LDP.

Voter turnout in the elections fell by 0.46 percentage points compared to the previous elections to 52.47%.