Incumbent Koike wins reelection as Tokyo governor

Incumbent Gov. Yuriko Koike secured a landslide victory in the Tokyo gubernatorial election held on July 5. A record high of 22 candidates ran, with the main election issues being coronavirus countermeasures and the challenge of managing the postponed Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

Social distancing considerations due to the epidemic meant campaigns were carried out under extradordinary circumstances.

Koike announced her candidacy on June 12, with less than a week to go before the official campaign period began.

She succeeded in securing support from a wide range of nonaffiliated voters.

The Liberal Democratic Party let its party members decide themselves whom to vote for, but Koike secured the support of LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai, and its coalition partner Komeito effectively endorsed her.

The opposition parties, on the other hand, tried to field a unified candidate but failed to do so.

While the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party supported former Japan Federation of Bar Associations President Kenji Utsunomiya, the Democratic Party for the People decided to let its members choose which candidates they vote for.

As part of her campaign, Koike pledged to establish an entity similar to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of coronavirus countermeasures that would support the development of vaccines and therapeutic drugs by consolidating testing and research functions. She also advocated for reducing the scale and cost of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

However, the challenges facing the Tokyo metropolitan government are manifold.

The government has yet to settle how much of the additional expenses for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of yen, which will be shouldered by Tokyo. Another major issue is the reconstruction of finances, which are under pressure due to the largescale coronavirus measures.

The Yomiuri Shimbun Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike livestreams a speech after securing reelection on July 5.