Tokyo’s female governor takes on Japan’s old-boy network

TOKYO — Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is challenging Japan’s old-boy network in the capital, where she thrashed a ruling party rival to win her post and now aims to lead reform-minded candidates to victory in a citywide July election.

A popular former TV announcer who speaks Arabic and English, Koike is the leader of a city with an economy bigger than that of the Netherlands and a budget on par with Sweden’s — and her reformist image has some politicians betting she could become Japan’s first female prime minister in a few years.

For now, the former defense minister says her sights are set firmly on a July 2 Tokyo metropolitan assembly poll, where she’s targeting a majority for her fledgling “Tokyo Citizens First” party and its allies.

Koike, in an interview with Reuters, compared herself to French President Emmanuel Macron, whose election marked a meteoric rise and whose party now needs a majority in June parliamentary elections so he can carry out reforms.

“I am doing the same — trying to increase the new assembly members who aspire to reform,” she said. “Even if a (new) top leader is chosen, reforms will not progress if the legislature does not change.”

Koike, who has made good governance a key policy plank after her two predecessors quit over scandals, has already caused a crack in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’ s ruling bloc by tying up with the Komeito party, the Liberal Democratic Party’s junior national-level partner, for the local poll.

After nearly a year in office, her support ratings are still above 60 percent, prompting defections from a struggling opposition Democratic Party and from the LDP.

Koike brushed speculation about her future aside.

“I am concentrating on the single matter of what to do for Tokyo,” she said, adding any sign she was eyeing national politics would sap motivation among metropolitan employees.

Koike has a record of challenging Japan’s male-dominated politics and urged the Kasumigaseki Country Club, the golf venue in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, to admit women as full members.

She stepped down after 55 days as defense minister in 2007 following a fur or over her attempt to replace the ministry’s top bureaucrat. Allies said her judgment was vindicated when Takemasa Moriya, also forced to step down, was convicted of taking bribes from defense contractors.

Any path for Koike to Japan’s top job is likely to be long and steep. Nonetheless, several politicians said she could run for parliament in 2021, when an expected third term for Abe as LDP president and hence, prime minister, ends. If still popular, she could be anointed by the LDP to succeed Abe.

“If Ms. Koike makes the Olympics a success, her ratings will rise a lot,” LDP lawmaker Hajime Funada said. “Then Abe would be a lame duck, and Ms. Koike would be the rising sun.”

Even if a (new) top leader is chosen, reforms will not progress if the legislature does not change.” Yuriko Koike, Tokyo governor and former defense minister