The race to become the next governor of Tokyo began yesterday in an election widely seen as a referendum on Japan’s energy policy, almost three years after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima.
Observers said the Feb. 9 election will be a two-way race between the anti-nuclear former prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa and Yoichi Masuzoe, an academic and former health minister, who served as a member of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government.
“We have to stop [the policy of] restarting nuclear plants as soon as possible and adapt to a new era,” Hosokawa said on the campaign trail yesterday.
Photo: AFP
Japanese voters have become wary of nuclear power since the tsunami-sparked disaster at Fukushima began in March 2011, but the issue failed to materialize in the national polls that swept Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to power, with his opponents’ apparent haplessness neutralizing their anti-nuclear stance.
The governor of Tokyo has no actual power to change national energy policy, but the sheer size of the city, with 13 million inhabitants and a pivotal place in the economic, political and cultural life of Japan, means its verdict will be tough to ignore.
Hosokawa, whose 1993 to 1994 stint as prime minister is little more than a footnote to modern political history, has the backing of wildly popular one-time prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.
The abundantly coiffured Koizumi has shunned the limelight since his five-year term ended in 2006, but he emerged as an anti-nuclear convert midway through last year and began agitating for the permanent shuttering of Japan’s nuclear reactors.
That put him at odds with Abe, his one-time protege who has vowed to get the plants back on line when they have passed new, more stringent safety tests.
Popular memories of the 2001 to 2006 Koizumi administration remain overwhelmingly positive, and his backing is expected to give Hosokawa a significant boost, analysts said.
“At this point Mr Masuzoe seems to be the strongest candidate, as Mr Hosokawa has been largely mum about the details of his policy stances,” Tokyo University professor of politics Sadafumi Kawato said.
However, “Mr Koizumi is still popular and honestly I can’t predict the vote result,” he added.
“But if Mr Hosokawa wins the election, it could be an obstacle to Prime Minister Abe’s energy policy,” he said, adding that Tokyo is a major shareholder of Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima plant.
However, in a note to clients, research consultancy Capital Economics said Abe, whose drive to reinvigorate Japan’s sluggish economy is widely believed to be bearing fruit, may be able to ride out a negative result in the Tokyo poll.
“The influence of local politicians on energy policy is limited. The national government should therefore still be able to resume nuclear generation in coming months whichever way the Tokyo vote goes,” it said.
Masuzoe, who gained fame as a political scientist and TV pundit, said his priority was to make the 2020 Tokyo Olympics a success.
“I want to have the best Olympics and Paralympics ever in history,” he said, adding that public safety, disaster prevention and social welfare services are also among his priorities.
On energy policy, he said: “It is better to reduce the ratio” of nuclear power in energy consumption, in [the] short term, securing the safety of nuclear plants is important.”
At least 15 people filed their candidacy for the election, which is to be voted on by 10.82 million people, Tokyo’s election board said yesterday afternoon.
Other candidates include Kenji Utsunomiya, 67, an anti-nuclear liberal lawyer backed by Japan’s Communist Party, and Toshio Tamogami, 65, a former air defense force chief with outspoken nationalist views.
The post of Tokyo governor fell vacant last month when Naoki Inose stepped down in a money scandal after admitting he had been naive to accept an undeclared US$500,000 from a hospital tycoon.
Prosecutors have begun quizzing him over the cash, reports said yesterday.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of