Tokyo Voters Make Their Choice

As the world watched critical national elections in the UK and France last week, Tokyoites prepared to vote for their governor. With 11.3 percent of the Japanese population residing in the metropolitan area, how Tokyo residents register their preferences matters. The incumbent, Koike Yuriko, handily won her third term, but her challengers and how they fared perhaps signal more about what kind of leadership Japan’s citizens hope for.

Koike has been a popular governor. In her first election, she swept into power with an overwhelming endorsement. As the first woman to govern Japan’s capital, she drew vast numbers of voters, especially women. She also won without the help of Japan’s ruling parties, the Liberal Democrats and the Komeito. Koike promptly reorganized for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections with her own party, Tokyo First. The mood was high, and supporters sought to encourage her to lead the opposition in Japan’s next general election. Koike chose not to, and she has led the Tokyo Metropolitan Government successfully through the pandemic. Koike has advocated for greater gender equality and, in her acceptance speech, said she would get to work quickly on her promise to aid those raising children and caring for Japan’s ever-growing number of elderly.

Two candidates challenged Koike’s record this year. The first was Renhō, a female Diet member supported by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) and the Japan Communist Party. Renhō has long been a popular national figure, taking on government policy with policy savvy and political precision. She is also of dual heritage, with both Japanese and Taiwanese ancestry. Renhō ran a campaign to make Tokyo a more “open and livable city,” promising to make it better for young people and to break the glass ceiling in governance. Clearly, Japan’s progressive parties thought that Renhō could give Koike a run for her money. But she didn’t. In fact, Renhō came in third, a disappointing finish that largely was due to her inability to attract a large enough share of the 48 percent of the Tokyo electorate that claimed to be independents.

The second-place finisher, Ishimaru Shinji, did appeal to voters unaffiliated with any national political party. Ishimaru Shinji, a forty-three-year-old former mayor of Akitakata in Hiroshima prefecture, had little name recognition and no national party support. He called for the Japanese to pay more attention to combatting the effects of Japan’s demographic decline so that his generation could hand over a better Japan to their children. Ishimaru deployed a very effective social media strategy using SNS and a YouTube channel with over 304,000 subscribers. While exit polling by the NHK, Kyodo, and Asahi Shimbun had slightly different numbers, all revealed that Ishimaru had struck a chord with Tokyo’s independents and younger voters under thirty.  

This was not a good election for the LDP. Prime Minister Kishida’s party did not run their own candidate for the governor’s seat, electing to support Koike instead, but they lost six of the nine Tokyo Assembly seats. One of those losses was in the district of Hagiuda Kōichi, a member of the former Abe faction and one of the LDP’s leading figures. The LDP now has only 30 seats out of 127 in the Tokyo Assembly.

The dynamics of local elections, even one as consequential as Tokyo’s, do not translate immediately into national elections. Yet, the choices of Tokyo’s voters deserve attention. On the talk shows and in press conferences on Monday, LDP heavyweights, including Prime Minister Kishida, commented on the voters’ message. The party leadership race in September will undoubtedly focus on how the party can energize younger voters as well as attract the 59 percent of the Japanese electorate who are unaffiliated. 

On Monday morning, Governor Koike got back to work. As for Ishimaru, when asked whether he had his sights on national politics, he boldly claimed he might run for District One of Hiroshima Prefecture – Prime Minister Kishida’s home district.