Roundup: Japan's Okinawa mayor re-elected, demands land after U.S. airbase shutdown

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party-backed incumbent Atsushi Sakima secured a second four-year term as the mayor of Ginowan City, Okinawa Prefecture, in a key election Sunday.

The contest saw the closure and relocation battle over a controversial U.S military base as a central theme for voters in the base-hosting city.

Sakima, 51, has pledged to shut down the controversial base and use the land to build a Disney resort, and has called on the central government to return the base land to the people of the city and Okinawa without delay.

He has not specified equivocally if he personally supports the central government's contentious plans to build a replacement facility in a coastal region also in Japan's southernmost prefecture, a move strongly opposed by the majority of those living in Okinawa, as well as key officials.

"I'd like to call on the government for the return of the airfield to be implemented without further delay," Sakima was quoted as saying after confirmation of his victory on Sunday evening.

The results will be a possible boost to the plans of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government who plan to see the U.S. base relocated to a coastal region of the island, despite the ongoing protests of officials and islanders who wish to see their long-endured base-hosting burdens lifted.

Sakima won 27,668 votes, while his opponent Keiichiro Shimura, a 63-year-old former prefectural government employee and Sakima's only opponent in the election mayoral race, who was campaigning to see the base's relocation halted, the base shut down, land returned to Okinawa, and the base preferably relocated outside the prefecture, secured 21,811 votes on the day.

Abe pegged his hopes on Sakima winning the election so as to speed up the impasse between the regional and central government and derail Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga's ceaseless efforts to block the relocation plans.

The victory of the LDP-backed candidate, whose campaign was designed by the ruling camp in Nagatacho, Tokyo, was also of particular importance to Abe ahead of this summer's upper house election in which the LDP is looking to consolidate its power.

The prime minister was quoted as telling an LDP party lawmaker that Sunday's victory was "an important one," whereas Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said the central government, "will go ahead with the construction of the replacement facility for the U.S. Air Station Futenma and, at the same time, tackle the reduction of the burden on Okinawa," according to the Kyodo News Agency.

The ongoing base relocation deadlock, however, has irked the United States, as the central government continues to try and appease its ally by giving its continued assurances that the relocation and construction of the new base will go ahead as per a previous bilateral agreement between the two countries, that will still be subjected to obstacles from Okinawan officials, civic groups and regular citizens ahead of the summer elections.

The relocation, Washington hoped, would be predicated on the acceptance and understanding of the people of Okinawa to the base's move, which has and continues to not be the case, and the standoff between the island prefecture and Tokyo is set to continue.

Washington, as has been the case in the past under previous administrations, could become increasingly vexed with Tokyo over the issue, as polls have shown that Abe has failed to sufficiently explain to, and gain the support of Onaga, as well as the people of Okinawa, on the base relocation, despite intensive talks being held between both parties on the highly-sensitive issue.

Abe, whose public popularity plummeted following his forcing of unconstitutional war bills into law in a bid to expand the nation's military scope, has said the building of a new base, partly on reclaimed land from the waters of Oura Bay in Henoko, remains the only solution for the relocation of the Futenma base.

The central government also sees it as an integral part of its increasingly hawkish security policy.

Shimura's victory would have been a boon to Onaga, as the prefectural and central government are currently locked horns in multiple legal issues pertaining to the base relocation and repeated moves by Onaga to block and delay proceedings, which has led to both sides sueing each other.

"I hope Governor Onaga will do his best to realize the will of the people that the excessive burden cannot be accepted," Shimura was quoted as saying on Sunday after the polls. Onaga, for his part, told local reports that Okinawa's "wishes haven't been realized. Our policy to protest the (base's) transfer to Henoko will not change."

Both Onaga and Shimura hold the stance that the central government's relocation plans remain unacceptable and that Abe is overly fixated on the base relocation to the coastal Henoko region as being the only solution and should be more empathetic to the base hosting burdens of the Okinawa people.

In 1996, the Japanese and U.S. governments inked an accord to close down the Futenma base and return land occupied by the facility to Okinawa, with the transfer of the base function's aimed partly at reducing the burden on Okinawa and its people.

The majority of Japanese people, polls have shown, including those on the mainland and on Okinawa island, still believe Abe and his administration are mishandling the base relocation issue, with the generality in Japan's southernmost prefecture wanting the new base relocated off the island at a bare minimum, and out of Japan entirely if possible.

Okinawans have consistently called on both prefectural and central governments to see their base-hosting burdens lifted, amid instances of numerous military-related accidents, such as the August 2004 incident of a Marine CH-53D Sea Stallion heavy assault transport helicopter crashing into the Okinawa International University in Ginowan.

Other local distresses have comprised increasing pollution caused by the military and a number of globally-reported crimes committed by U.S. military personnel, including the rape of an elementary schoolgirl in Okinawa by three U.S. servicemen in 1995.

Okinawa hosts some 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan, yet the tiny sub-tropical island accounts for less than 1 percent of the county's land mass.

Polls officially closed at 8:00 p.m. Sunday at the 16 polling stations across the city and official counting of ballots did not begin before 9:00 p.m. The election commission said 72,526 people were eligible to vote as of Sunday. Enditem