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Denny Tamaki, who campaigned criticizing the American military presence on Okinawa, won the election for governor Sunday, becoming the first Amerasian to lead the southwestern Japanese islands.
The race was to choose a successor to Takeshi Onaga, who died in August of pancreatic cancer. He wanted the bases off Okinawa.
Tamaki, a legislator who had pledged to continue with Onaga’s “spirit,” thanked his supporters as his campaign office broke into a cheer and later began dancing Okinawa-style, after his victory.
“The strong feelings of Takeshi Onaga, risking his life to stop the construction of any more bases, helped bring this victory,” Tamaki told reporters.
He defeated Atsushi Sakima, a mayor who had argued that Okinawa should work with the national government to sort out the problem, by a comfortable 80,000 vote difference, with voter turnout relatively high at 63 percent. Tamaki garnered more than 396,000 votes to Sakima’s 316,000, according to the final tally.
Tamaki’s victory throws into further question Japan’s plans for a new air base still under construction in coastal Okinawa.
Okinawa houses about half of the 54,000 American troops stationed in Japan and makes for 64 percent of the land space used by the U.S. bases, under a bilateral security treaty, according to John S. Hutcheson, spokesman for the U.S. Forces in Japan.
The arrangement has long been protested by some as an unfair burden on Okinawa, which makes up less than 1 percent of Japan’s land space.
Japan remains highly dependent on the U.S. for defense, but crimes by members of the military, including hit-and-runs as well as rapes, have outraged the people of Okinawa. They are also angry about noise pollution and the dangers of crashes from military aircraft.
Tamaki, whose father is a U.S. Marine he has never met, has often said he is a symbol of the predicament of his people. His mother is Japanese.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.73392cc52260
The race was to choose a successor to Takeshi Onaga, who died in August of pancreatic cancer. He wanted the bases off Okinawa.
Tamaki, a legislator who had pledged to continue with Onaga’s “spirit,” thanked his supporters as his campaign office broke into a cheer and later began dancing Okinawa-style, after his victory.
“The strong feelings of Takeshi Onaga, risking his life to stop the construction of any more bases, helped bring this victory,” Tamaki told reporters.
He defeated Atsushi Sakima, a mayor who had argued that Okinawa should work with the national government to sort out the problem, by a comfortable 80,000 vote difference, with voter turnout relatively high at 63 percent. Tamaki garnered more than 396,000 votes to Sakima’s 316,000, according to the final tally.
Tamaki’s victory throws into further question Japan’s plans for a new air base still under construction in coastal Okinawa.
Okinawa houses about half of the 54,000 American troops stationed in Japan and makes for 64 percent of the land space used by the U.S. bases, under a bilateral security treaty, according to John S. Hutcheson, spokesman for the U.S. Forces in Japan.
The arrangement has long been protested by some as an unfair burden on Okinawa, which makes up less than 1 percent of Japan’s land space.
Japan remains highly dependent on the U.S. for defense, but crimes by members of the military, including hit-and-runs as well as rapes, have outraged the people of Okinawa. They are also angry about noise pollution and the dangers of crashes from military aircraft.
Tamaki, whose father is a U.S. Marine he has never met, has often said he is a symbol of the predicament of his people. His mother is Japanese.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.73392cc52260
