Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike poised for landslide re-election despite new surge of coronavirus cases

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is expected to prevail in Sunday's election after earning plaudits for her handling of the city's coronavirus crisis even as new infections in the capital have increased in recent days.

Polls suggest Koike, 67, has the support of about 60 per cent of voters, enough to deliver a landslide victory against 21 other candidates who have failed to slow her march towards securing a second term.

Even if Koike is overwhelmingly re-elected, though, major challenges await, with a decision pending on the delayed Olympic Games and mounting financial pressures caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Her popularity in Tokyo has in the past fuelled speculation she could one day be the country's first female prime minister but analysts suggest higher office will remain out of reach.

Tokyo, with a population of about 14 million, accounts for nearly 6,400 of Japan's approximately 19,000 cases. There were 124 new cases reported in the capital on Friday after 107 cases on Thursday.

"We will take necessary steps to prevent [the coronavirus] from spreading further and brace for a possible second wave," Koike said on Friday.

The governor has been praised for her decisive, straight-talking approach after she warned in March about the possibility of a lockdown and called for a state of emergency. In contrast, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been criticised for a lack of testing " dating back to his handling of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which docked in Yokohama in February " and waiting until April 16 to declare a national state of emergency.

"The pandemic has been the big issue on everyone's mind for the last few months and it has played a big part in the election campaign," said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at the Tokyo campus of Temple University. "And Koike has come out of the situation a lot better than Abe. The pandemic has been the stress test that Abe has failed and Koike has proved herself to be the better communicator.

Passers-by wearing protective face masks walk past several candidate posters. Photo: Reuters

Koike's Tomin First no Kai party " which translates to Tokyoites First Party " is locally focused, conservative and holds 53 of the 127 seats in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, relying on political allies to establish a majority which enables it to control the chamber.

During the campaign, Koike has benefited from the weakness of other candidates " the crowded field is also likely to strip votes away from her one or two genuine rivals, further aiding her re-election.

Kenji Utsunomiya is her most serious threat, although a mere 20 per cent of the electorate have indicated they plan to support the 73-year-old former lawyer making his third run for governor.

Utsunomiya, who has the support of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and two other minor parties, has promised more support for businesses struggling during the coronavirus pandemic. He also favours scrapping the Olympic Games, which have been postponed to July 2021, pending experts' assessments of the risks.

At 46, the youthful Taisuke Ono has a similar platform of promising support for businesses, while former actor Taro Yamamoto leads the anti-establishment Reiwa Shinsengumi and wants the consumption tax halved to 5 per cent and nuclear energy scrapped. Takashi Tachibana leads a party dedicated to "crushing" Japan's national broadcaster NHK, where he was formerly employed as a journalist.

Makoto Sakurai has led the far-right Japan First Party since its founding in 2016 and wants foreign nationals excluded from welfare assistance and the emperor declared head of state. The party is virulently anti-Chinese, anti-Korean, anti-immigration and anti-communist.

Hideyuki Takemoto, another former journalist, promotes conspiracy theories on social media, while Hiroko Nanami represents the Happiness Realisation Party, the religious wing of the deeply conservative and anti-communist Happy Science religious movement. Mariko Kuda is a fencing coach whose sole aim appears to be making sure the Olympics go ahead next year.

Taro Yamamoto, former actor and leader of Reiwa Shinsengumi. Photo: EPA

"Anybody who has a spare 1 million yen (US$9,301) lying around can put up lots of posters with their face on and get some free TV time to express their views," said Jun Okumura, a political analyst at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs. "But having so many candidates really does work in Koike's favour and she will certainly win."

Assuming she wins re-election, Koike faces some daunting challenges, Okumura said.

"Koike has already spent virtually all the 900 billion yen that was in the city government's emergency fund to prop up the businesses that were failing in the initial stages of the coronavirus crisis, but it very much appears that Tokyo is now experiencing a second wave of the illness," he said. "If this trend continues, then I do not see any choice but for the national government to reintroduce the state of emergency and shut down businesses again.

"There is the perception that as governor, Koike has done very well in handling the pandemic, but all she has done is pay out a lot of money and sound more coherent than Abe."

The Olympics is another pressing concern, given the uncertainty around whether they can go ahead and the likely additional costs to taxpayers. Okumura does not believe the Games can be held safely and suggests they will probably be cancelled early next year.

Koike, a former defence and environment minister, became Tokyo's first female governor in 2016, leading some observers to suggest she was poised to challenge for leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and eventually the post of prime minister.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike addresses the press after a meeting with Japanese economic revitalisation minister Yasutoshi Nishimura. Photo: Kyodo

According to Kingston, those aspirations were doomed in September 2017 when she founded a new party that "imploded on the eve of the general election the next month". Her party, Kibo no To, split from the LDP to become an alternative conservative and populist organisation but made little impact and merged six months later with another minor party to form the Democratic Party for the People.

Koike's party-hopping would be another liability. She entered politics under the banner of the short-lived Japan New Party, before joining the New Frontier Party in 1994 and then the Liberal Party three years later. In 2000, she defected to the New Conservative Party before joining the LDP in 2003. That affiliation lasted until 2017 and the failure of Kibo no To, before she joined the Tokyoites First Party.

"The collapse of the party in 2017 inevitably reflects on her leadership and her qualities will always be under scrutiny now," Kingston said. "Governor of Tokyo is still a prestigious position and this will be as far as she gets in politics."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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