Ishin no Kai Makes Headways in Hyogo
The Japanese Vaccine Passport Is Put in Motion while the Process Continues as the Olympics Start
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Let’s go with today’s Newsletter, shorter than usual:
Election News🗳️
The Essentials: News and weekly politics about Japan.🏆
Progress on the Vaccination Process of Japan💉
Tweet(s) of the Week💬
Election News🗳️
Hyogo Prefecture Governor Election
Last Sunday, the citizens of Hyogo Prefecture went to the polls to elect a new governor for the first time in 20 years. They had ro replace Governor Ido who was first elected in 2001 and after winning reelection five times, in 2021, he decided to retire from politics.
The race for Governor of Hyogo had interest from the beginning especially because of its location near Osaka, the cradle of Ishin no Kai, the neoliberal and center-right party that governs it and has provoked since its foundation an earthquake in the politics of the Kansai region. Despite its deep entrenchment in Osaka, Ishin no Kai had failed before in penetrating the higher echelons of power outside of it. When it comes to the race for Governor of Hyogo, the party ended up supporting Saito Motohiko, an Osaka transplant that had been chief of budget in that prefectural government until the race took place.
What to do with a growing Ishin no Kai has been a difficult question that has divided the LDP all over Kansai. In Hyogo, the party agonized over whether to support Saito itself despite receiving the endorsement of Ishin no Kai. In the end, the LDP split in two:
The national LDP supported Saito Motohiko
A majority of the local LDP supported Gov. Ido's vice-governor at the time Kanazawa Kazuo.
In the end, last Sunday, Saito Motohiko won the election with clarity and became the new governor of Hyogo.
In his victory, the strength and support from Ishin was not only key but essential. Exit polls as well as the results by region point out a massive turnout of Ishin supporters towards him.
Since his win, the national LDP has tried, softly, to claim this victory as theirs too. It'd be disingenuous, to say the least, to accept that claim though. Polls show that the LDP supporters were evenly divided in their votes. Saito Motohiko's win is on the shoulders of Ishin no Kai and they are the ones that will benefit from the victory.
As you can see in the map above, Saito Motohiko won resoundingly, with double digits. His strength was found in the city of Kobe, where it won more than 50% of the vote in some districts, and in the rural areas of Tamba (I've been told this part of Hyogo is beautiful. I can't wait to get there). His support was also important on the island of Awaji.
On the other hand, the results of Vice-governor Kanazawa Kazuo were dissapointing, more than his supporters expected I think. He barely cracked 30% as a whole.
The support of half of the LDP and from some Opposition parties was not enough.
In the end, his vote was reduced to rural, conservative areas of Northern Hyogo.
In the map above you can find a black hole of support where he was even below 30% of support.
He was especially weak in the cities and Kobe districts neighboring Osaka, the part known as the 'Hanshin Region', namesake of the area's baseball team and the railway that connects Kobe and Osaka through it.
These young bedroom communities are fertile ground for Ishin no Kai, where loyalties to the LDP are weakening.
After seeing the results, I think these are some of the possible reasons for his loss:
The lack of support from the national LDP hurt him, deprived him of the visit of national figures descending to Hyogo.
With only the support of some local LDP members, the enthusiastic endorsement he received from politicians from the Opposition probably turned off center-right voters.
The juxtaposition between Saito Motohiko (young & reformer) vs Kanazawa Kazuo (old & continuist of the Ido government) was a heavy lift impossible to overcome.
While the CDP & the DPFP supported Kanazawa, the Japanese Communist Party went its own way and had a surprisingly good result. Its candidate Kaneda Mineo won 10% of the vote after finding space in the race for left-wing voters that were not on board in the Kanazawa, more-of-the-same train.
As it is usual for the JCP, the highest share of the vote was found in the urban core areas: along the coast of the Sento Island sea, from Kobe to Akashi. These cities were especially weak for Kanazawa…
There was a fourth candidate of relevance in the race: a guy called Nakagawa Chouzo who won a respectable 7.7%.
A kind of a perennial candidate, Nakagawa was a student at the storied Matsushita Institute of Government & Management 「松下政経塾」where he shared classrooms with other future politicians. Afterward, he gave politics a try, failing to win several elections around Japan.
In 2005 he finally won a race, becoming mayor of his home city of Kasai, for two terms, until 2011. That’s where he had his best result last Sunday (19.7%).
There are several issues we'll have to pay attention to in the coming months to foresee how the government of Saito Motohiko might unfold:
How will Saito Motohiko govern Hyogo?
The joint support from Ishin and the national LDP puts him in a bind about where he might head next in his governorship. The leadership of Ishin no Kai, which are the Mayor and Governor of Osaka, have rushed to put him under their wing, calling for strengthened ‘Hyogo-Osaka' political and economic cooperation. If it works, Ishin might coopt Saito as their Governor in Hyogo, a major change.
What will be the relationship with the prefectural LDP?
The Liberal Democratic Party in the Hyogo Prefecture divided itself, with a majority crossing the aisle to support Kanazawa. Now that he, and they, have lost I wonder what attitude they'll take towards Saito Motohiko. Let's remember that in the origin of Ishin no Kai in Osaka there were LDP defectors.
Ishin has only 8 members in the Hyogo Assembly, so Saito will have to work with the LDP caucus which is currently divided into two different groups.
After the conquest of Osaka by Ishin no Kai, Hyogo has always been the second quarter in the sights of the party, but until now that had difficulties penetrating the power structures. Now, with a Governor that sympathizes, the party looks for expanding its presence beyond Osaka, starting with the next election to the Lower House, where Ishin n oKai might win its first seat in Hyogo, probably, in the area of Hanshin.
The Essentials: News and weekly politics about Japan.🏆
The Japanese Vaccination Passport Starts Working
On the 26th of July, the local administrations in Japan will start giving vaccine passports to the Japanese that have completed their vaccination. It is an important step in Japan’s slow movement towards the reopening of the country.
These passports allow its holders (Japanese and residents in Japan) to travel abroad to at least 30 countries with which Japan has reached an agreement. Still, agreements have only been made public with 7 of them:
The lack of reciprocity is a big problem though. Countries like France did not agree to allow Japanese people to enter if the French are not allowed in Japan. It seems a sensible position. I don’t really know for how much longer can Japan keep not only tourists but students and other visa holders outside of the country when international travel is being restarted everywhere, thanks to the vaccines. It looks like everyone is waiting for the end of the Olympics to have news from the government that could allow us to get into Japan.
There are thousands of students, for instance, waiting to get to Japan to enroll in their university or language school studies. It’s not reasonable to prolong this restriction any longer…😔
I am really hoping these restrictions will gradually be lifted after the summer...🤞🛫
Progress on the Vaccination Process of Japan💉
The vaccination process continues in Japan. Looking at the data, we cannot see yet a slowdown in the number of vaccines administered during the last weeks. It's possible that we see that crunch in early August, but Japan is still managing to administer more than 8 million doses per week. Good numbers.
DAILY DOSES
During the last six consecutive weeks, Japan has administered more than 1 million shots EVERY DAY. A fantastic rhythm that still does not reflect any possible slowdown.
The record of doses in a single day took place on the 7th of June: 1.381.748 doses
WEEKLY DOSES
It has been 22 weeks since the Japanese vaccination process started. Japan has managed to administer more than 4 million first doses in the last 8 weeks, a great feat that points out to regular growth in the number of people at least partially vaccinated, which nationally is at 35%.
The number of second doses has been steadily growing too to around 4.5 million for the last weeks. It’s good to see that this increase has not cut into the administration of first doses (yet?).
Dose 1
The really great news come from some specific prefectures of the country: rural areas of Japan have finally reached 40% of their population with at least one dose.
Yamaguchi 44.8%
Wakayama 43.9%
Yamagata 43.3%
On the other end, some urban areas of Japan barely reach 30%, with Okinawa still dead last at 28%.
In two weeks, we should expect prefectures like Yamaguchi of Wakayama to reach half of their population partially vaccinated! 👏👏
Check out the map to see the regional variation when the OLYMPICS START TODAY:
Dose 2
Some of the rural areas of Japan previously mentioned also enjoy the highest share of their people who are completely vaccinated, over 30%:
Saga 30.6%
Yamaguchi 30.2%
Yamagata 30.1%
The most populated prefectures of Japan have very few of its citizens completely vaccinated though: For example, Shizuoka is at 19.7%, Tokyo at 18% or Saitama at 18.5%, as you can see in the chart. This is way too low. We are almost in August already…
Tweet(s) of the Week💬
These are some of the tweets I liked this week.
Fantastic map:
I can’t wait to get to Tokyo and buy some political memorabilia!
THIS X1000000
Book Recommendation📚
Last week I finished reading the book: “African Samuari” by Thomas Lockley & Geoffrey Girard.
Around 450 pages long, the book narrates the history of Yasuke, arguably the first black samurai, which arrived in an entourage of Jesuits to Japan and ended up becoming a trusted ally of Oda Nobunaga in the 戦国時代, when the samurai and lords of Japan vied for control of the country.
The book is really fantastic and it presents a really extraordinary story in a readable way. It is not at all a scholarly book. Anyone with an interest in history could read it!
Have no doubt and go buy it!
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ありがとうございます
