Japanese PM-backed candidate wins Okinawa gubernatorial election

Genta Koja won Okinawa’s gubernatorial race, defeating two-term incumbent Denny Tamaki with 59% of the vote, election officials said. Koja, a former deputy mayor of Naha, had the backing of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party, while Tamaki campaigned on removing a major U.S. military base from the prefecture.

At 42 years old, Koja will be the youngest governor of Okinawa since the prefecture was returned to Japan from U.S. administration in 1972, and the first governor born after that reversion. Tamaki, 66, had led local opposition to U.S. force-relocation plans during his two terms.

Analysts say Koja’s win could undercut Okinawa’s long-running legal efforts to block the planned transfer of U.S. Marines from the Futenma air base to a new facility at Henoko on the main island. Masaaki Gabe, a professor emeritus at the University of the Ryukyus, said Koja’s election may also make it easier to expand military access to civilian airports and ports, and that Koja could be expected to approve designations allowing such use.

The vote comes as Prime Minister Takaichi prepares a new national security strategy this year that is expected to speed up Japan’s biggest military buildup since World War II. The administration argues higher defence spending is needed to deter what it views as potential military coercion by China. Okinawa sits on the so-called first island chain that helps constrain access to the western Pacific; Yonaguni Island lies about 110 km east of Taiwan, a focus of heightened Chinese military activity and a point Takaichi has linked to Japan’s security concerns.