Nago's mayoral election results aren't approval of new U.S. base

Does the re-election on February 3 of Kishimoto Tateo, the pro-U.S. base mayor of Nago City in Okinawa, mean that Nago residents are in favor of a new U.S. military base to be constructed off the coast of Nago? Akahata of February 5 answered this question as follows:

Mayor Kishimoto campaigned for his second term by deliberately avoiding this most important issue: the construction of a state-of-the-art U.S. military base.

In late 2001, Mayor Kishimoto accepted the central government proposal for constructing a "military-cum-civil airport" on the coral reef off the city coast. This, however, was a beach of the 1997 referendum in which a majority of voters rejected the construction of a new U.S. base. Kishimoto at the time proposed a "15-year use term" as a condition to accepting a new base, but this proposal has been clearly rejected by both the Japanese and U.S. governments.

In the mayoral election, Kishimoto failed to explain why he went against the citizens' opinion and the 15-year limit.

Emphasizing that the new base construction is important for maintaining reliable relations between Japan and the United States and for the destiny of the Japanese government, the government put fierce pressure on the city government, saying that a defeat of Kishimoto would mean cutting off central government assistance for local economic development.

The Kishimoto camp tried to use this pressure as a lever for mobilizing corporate employees to the campaign in support of Kishimoto. Its use of many absentee voters (18 percent of those who case votes) may have helped Kishimoto's re-election.

The Komei Party was another significant factor. In the previous mayoral election, it expressed opposition to the new base construction plan, but shortly before the official start of the recent mayoral election, it changed its position to side with Kishimoto.

Miyagi Yasuhiro, the candidate who was clearly opposed to the new U.S. base construction got 11,148 votes after a one-month campaign as a candidate.

But Kishimoto supporters had mixed emotions. The day before polling, a construction company president on his way to the Kishimoto office said to an Akahata reporter, "This time I want to vote for Miyagi. I thought before that U.S. bases are trade-offs for government economic assistance. The September 11 terrorist attacks showed that I was wrong. U.S. bases here will endanger our future generations." (end)