Okinawan election puts US base deal in jeopardy

By Agencies in Naha, Japan | China Daily | Updated: 2014-11-17 07:33

Win by challenger Onaga poses difficulties for Prime Minister Abe

A candidate backed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's party was soundly defeated in a key local election on Sunday, Kyodo news agency reported, in a blow to plans to relocate a controversial US air base on Okinawa island, home to the bulk of US military forces in Japan.

Kyodo said after the polls closed that its projections showed a former mayor, Takeshi Onaga, was certain to defeat incumbent Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima.

Nakaima, who ran with the backing of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, had approved a US-Japan plan to relocate the US marines' Futenma Air Station to a less populous part of the island.

Onaga's win is likely to be a significant blow to the central government because the governor has the power to veto the landfill work needed for a new base to be built.

That would leave Abe facing either overruling locally-elected officials - risking charges of authoritarianism - or reverting to the cajoling and persuading of recent years, which would not be popular with Washington.

It would also take some of the wind out of Abe's sails just days before he is expected to announce a general election.

Nakaima was accused of betraying the semitropical island chain after striking a deal with Tokyo last year to greenlight a plan to move Futenma from a crowded urban area to a sparsely populated coastal district some 50 kilometers to the north.

Abe pledged a huge cash injection to the local economy in return for Nakaima reversing years of opposition to the move, which was first mooted in the 1990s.

Katsuji Miyagi 64, a retiree, said he voted for Onaga.

"Four years ago I voted for Nakaima but he broke his promises," he said.

"I've had enough of these bases. I want no more bases in Okinawa."

Crimes such as rape and trespass by US military servicemen are often headlined in Okinawa.

Onaga had support from opposition parties such as the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party due to his anti-relocation stance.

Okinawa is home to more than half of the 47,000 US service personnel stationed in Japan, and strategically key to the US-Japan security alliance at a time of simmering tensions in East Asia.

But there is widespread local hostility to the military presence, with complaints over noise, the risk of accidents and a perception that the presence of so many young servicemen is a source of crime.

The current base sits in a residential district whose inhabitants bitterly recall a 2004 military helicopter crash in the grounds of a local university, and who resent the sound of roaring engines meters from their backyards.

Reuters - AFP - Xinhua