Local election victories accelerate IR development

If at the beginning of this year one were to sketch out the dream scenario for IR development in Japan, the actual results of April’s Unified Local Elections would greatly resemble that picture, with pro-IR politicians and parties winning almost every battle, and usually winning big. The stakes were arguably the highest in Osaka, the one major urban market where the local government has been moving forward proactively with an IR bid, together with its added bonus of landing the 2025 World Expo for the Yumeshima site. The local ruling party—the Osaka Restoration Association—put it all on the line in the April 7 elections. Not only were the regularly scheduled prefectural assembly and city council elections held on that day, but also the gubernatorial and mayoral elections that had been scheduled for this November. Governor Ichiro Matsui and Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura resigned their posts seven months early and then ran for one another’s offices. The gamble paid off handsomely for the Osaka leaders. Not only were Yoshimura and Matsui returned as governor and mayor respectively, but their regional party performed fantastically, winning an outright majority in the prefectural assembly and gaining a substantial number of seats in the city council. This election had not been fought on the issue of the Yumeshima IR, but its outcome guaranteed fast-track development of the project led by a local government that is entirely committed to it. In Hokkaido, the outcome of the elections was similar. While new Governor Naomichi Suzuki has not overtly supported an IR bid for his northernmost prefecture, he decisively defeated an anti-casino candidate supported by all the opposition parties and who would have certainly brought the hammer down on local IR schemes. In the Hokkaido Prefectural Assembly too, the ruling conservatives gained a single-party majority for the first time in 36 years. In short, pushed by the prefecture’s business community and the city government of Tomakomai, the stage is clearly set for the new governor to announce that he will support an IR bid. This picture was pretty much the same everywhere else. The pro-IR mayor of Sasebo, Norio Tomonaga, was handily reelected, and conservatives swept every prefecture in the nation—aside from Okinawa which is locked in a battle with the central government over the construction of a US military airbase. The minor exception came in Shizuoka city where a mayoral candidate proposing an IR bid for his municipality fell short in his attempt to unseat the incumbent mayor. However, even here there is a silver lining, as it clears the way for the city of Makinohara, within the same prefecture, to move forward with its own IR initiative. Shizuoka Governor Heita Kawakatsu, however, has yet to tip his hand as to his own intentions. At the root of these positive electoral results for IR development are factors, however, which are not necessarily positive for the Japanese nation. It is largely a reflection of a national political scene which is becoming less competitive and less genuinely democratic. Opposition parties are fragmented and organizationally weak. Voter turnout is falling to historic lows. An increasing percentage of local officials no longer even have to face opponents as no one attempts to run against them. But at this critical juncture of the Japanese IR race, where most of public opinion and every left-of-center opposition force wants to bring a halt to casino legalization, the conservative dominance is a windfall, allowing IR construction to go forward in spite of its unpopularity in all but a handful of local areas.