Poll win for Japanese mayor opposed to US move
Print Edition
A MAYOR opposed to the relocation of a US airbase on Japan’s Okinawa island was re-elected yesterday, Kyodo news agency said, creating a political headache for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and threatening friction with Washington.
Delays in relocating the US Marines’ Futenma air base, a move first agreed between Tokyo and Washington in 1996, have long been an irritant in US-Japan ties and Abe is keen to make progress on the project as he seeks tighter ties with the US.
Abe’s ties with Washington suffered after the US expressed “disappointment” with his December 26 visit to the Yasukuni war shrine, a pilgrimage that further strained relations with China and South Korea, which see the shrine as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism.
Susumu Inamine, a staunch opponent of the relocation plan, was assured re-election as mayor of the Okinawa city of Nago, Kyodo said, citing projections shortly after the polls closed.
Inamine has pledged to use his local authority to block the relocation of the functions of Futenma from a populous part of central Okinawa to Nago’s coastal Henoko area.
His main opponent has backed the plan and run with strong support from Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party. Last month, Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima approved a landfill project to implement the plan.
Futenma has long been a lightning rod for discontent among Okinawa residents, many of whom associate the concentration of US bases with accidents, pollution and crime such as the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by three US servicemen.
Seeking to soothe discontent, Abe earmarked 348 billion yen (US$3.34 billion) for Okinawa’s economic development in the draft budget for the year from April and pledged about 300 billion yen per year to 2021/22.
Abe also promised to study whether relocation could be speeded up and said the government would start talks with the US on a deal that could allow more oversight of environmental issues at US bases.
Analysts say Abe could risk denting support for his government, which came to power at the end of 2012 with promises to revive the economy, if he pushes ahead with relocation.
“Inamine’s victory will give momentum to the anti-base movement and the opposition campaign could spread,” Takashi Kawakami, a professor at Takushoku University, said. “Abe will probably try to forge ahead but there will probably be an opposition movement ... and if this is reported in the media daily, Abe’s support could fall.”
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