The colorless politicians in the Nagata-cho, Japan’s Capitol Hill, can only look on the recent landslide election of Toru Hashimoto as mayor of Osaka with a mixture of envy and dread – envious of his obvious voter appeal and charisma and dread that his special election magic won’t stay bottled up in his Kansai area bailiwick.
Hashimoto was elected mayor of Japan’s second city with a 60 percent majority on Nov. 27 against an incumbent mayor who enjoyed the support of both the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). A close political ally was similarly elevated to become governor of the surrounding prefecture.
If this were South Korea and Hashimoto had been elected mayor of Seoul in such a resounding way, he would immediately be considered a front-runner to become president. That is the case with the activist Park Won-soon, following his surprise election victory in South Korea’s capital. He too triumphed against the country’s entrench political establishment.
Japan has a parliamentary form of government, so it is not so easy for a prefectural governor or mayor to move to the top job, no matter how popular. If Hashimoto entered parliament with one of the two main parties, he would be relegated to the back benches and slowly work his way up to prime minister through the various ministries.
Or, conversely, he could form his own political party and contest national elections as its leader, possibly emerging as a balance-of-power kingmaker or even as premier himself. For the moment, he heads his own regional group called the Osaka Restoration Association. It would be easy to substitute the word 'Japan' for 'Osaka' from the party name and go national.
Hashimoto has already said he would consider fielding Restoration Association candidates in the upcoming national elections, which must be held by the summer of 2013 when the current government’s term of office ends. Already several smaller parties in the Diet would be happy to tap into the voter discontent Hashimoto capitalized on so convincingly. At the same time, some kind of alliance would give his regional party a foothold in the national parliament.
For the moment, however, Hashimoto has a more parochial objective, which is to merge the city of Osaka with surrounding 32 cities to form a city-prefectural government entity, similar to Tokyo. (The old 'City' of Tokyo was abolished in 1943 as a war measure and merged with the surrounding territory.)
Such a merger, he argues, would give Osaka the kind of heft that would allow it to compete on more equal terms with the capital. Osaka has 2.6 million people inside the city limits and about 8 million in the prefecture. Add Kyoto and Kobe and the figure comes to about 20 million. Tokyo has 13 million in its prefecture and 33 million in the surrounding metropolis.
Moreover, Osaka has been lagging behind Tokyo in terms of economic development despite the presence of such major companies as Panasonic and Sharp. The March 11 earthquake and nuclear crisis also prompted some companies to move their headquarters, at least temporarily, to Osaka. Unemployment in the city is about 7 percent compared with less than 5 for the nation as a whole.
