Tokyo elects first female governor

Thanking her supporters in the evening after her victory was clear, the 64-year-old Koike said, "While feeling the weight of this result, I want to thoroughly push the metropolitan government forward as the new governor."

A record 21 candidates discussed their vision for the metropolis during the 17-day campaign period, including how to ensure success of the 2020 Games, and dealing with a shortage of facilities to care for Tokyo's oldest and youngest residents.

They also promised the prevention of money-related scandals like those that saw the previous two governors step down.

Koike defeated such leading candidates as former internal affairs minister Hiroya Masuda, 64, and former TV news anchorman Shuntaro Torigoe, 76.

With all ballots counted, she received 2.91 million votes, dwarfing Masuda's 1.79 million votes and Torigoe's 1.35 million votes.

She is set to serve a four-year term as governor.

Koike, formerly a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, ran without the party's endorsement, effectively splitting the LDP vote. She initially appealed to the party's Tokyo chapter for support, but the chapter threw its weight behind Masuda, a former governor of Iwate Prefecture.

It was the first Tokyo gubernatorial election since 1999 in which voters faced a choice between at least two candidates from the LDP.

During the campaign, Koike promised to "put the metropolitan government back into the hands of Tokyo's people."

In order to address the shortage of day care facilities for young children, Koike pledged to loosen regulations to increase the number of care workers.

Torigoe ran with the united backing of the Democratic Party and three other opposition parties. He said he decided to enter the race after the House of Councillors election on July 10 brought reform of Japan's pacifist Constitution closer to the reach of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration.

After the result became obvious, Masuda said his loss was due to his "own inadequacy," while Torigoe said "disruption" by the tabloid media was partly to blame for the outcome.

Torigoe had lodged a libel complaint against weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun during the campaign over its coverage of a sexual harassment allegation against him dating from 2002.

According to electoral authorities, the final voter turnout stood at 59.73 percent, up 13.59 percentage points from the last election in February 2014 of 46.14 percent, while 1,708,195 people cast early votes during the campaign period, up 70 percent from last time.

Tokyo had 11,274,080 million eligible voters as of July 13, the day before the campaigning started.

With Koike's term set to take her through to the eve of the 2020 Games, her campaign promise to rationalize the budget has raised concerns among some on the organizing committee.

With building material costs and counterterrorism provisions threatening to take the organizing committee's budget beyond its capacity, Tokyo 2020 chief Yoshiro Mori, Olympic minister Toshiaki Endo and then-Tokyo Gov. Masuzoe agreed March 31 that the metropolitan government would shoulder some new building costs.

But Koike's show of reluctance to increase Tokyo's share of costs could complicate that agreement and possibly set the stage for a clash with Mori, a former LDP heavyweight, who has said responsibility for the preparations lies with the Tokyo governor.

In a telephone interview on early Monday, Mori expressed willingness to work with the incoming governor to make the Olympics successful.

The election result "doesn't change the fact that the organizing committee, the metropolitan government and the state will work on (Olympic preparations) by cooperating with one another," he said. "No matter who the Tokyo governor is, we will try our best to make the Games successful."

In the previous election in February 2014, Masuzoe won in a landslide victory with more than 2.11 million votes, beating Kenji Utsunomiya, former head of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, and former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa.

Masuzoe, a former health and welfare minister, resigned last month after admitting to using political funds for private purposes. He had come under fire for using official cars on frequent visits to his vacation home and for large spending on overseas business trips.

His predecessor Naoki Inose quit in December 2013 over a money scandal linked to his election campaign.

Source: Kyodo