Genta Koja wins Okinawa's governorship, ending 12 years of resistance to the Henoko base plan
Genta Koja, a 42-year-old former deputy mayor of Naha backed by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party, won Sunday's Okinawa governor election with 59 percent of the vote, defeating two-term incumbent Denny Tamaki. Koja accepts the plan to move the US Marines' Futenma air base to Henoko, which Tamaki fought for years; he is the first governor born after Okinawa's 1972 return to Japan and the prefecture's first leader in 12 years to back the relocation.
Geopolitics··Midday
Koja takes 59 percent against Tamaki
The prefectural government's count, relayed by AFP, gave Koja 423,124 votes to Tamaki's 276,060, or 59 percent of the vote. The 42-year-old former deputy mayor of Naha ran with the backing of Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party on a campaign centred on doubling the island's average income. He is the youngest governor since Okinawa's 1972 return to Japanese rule and the first born after it. Takaichi said she would coordinate with the new governor on the economy and address other subjects after hearing from him. Tamaki, the two-term incumbent, had spent years pressing for the US Marines' Futenma air base to leave the island.[1], [2]
The Futenma-to-Henoko move loses its opponent in the governor's office
Tokyo and Washington agreed in 1996 to move the base out of the city of Ginowan to another site on the island after the rape of a schoolgirl by US servicemen. A governor approved the Henoko plan in 2013 and lost to an opponent of the move the following year, and Tamaki kept up that opposition. Koja, by contrast, accepts the transfer of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the coastal Henoko area of Nago and becomes the prefecture's first leader in 12 years to back the plan. Masaaki Gabe, a professor emeritus at the University of the Ryukyus, said the result could end the prefecture's legal efforts to block the move and could make it easier to open civilian airports and ports to military use.[1], [2]
A result that lands as Takaichi drafts a new security strategy
The vote comes as Takaichi prepares a national security strategy that is expected to accelerate Japan's largest military build-up since the Second World War. Okinawa forms part of the first island chain that limits China's access to the western Pacific, and Yonaguni, Japan's westernmost island, lies 110 km from Taiwan. Koja's win over Tamaki hands the Takaichi government a supporter in the governor's office as it moves ahead with the contentious Henoko project.[1], [2]
