Tokyo gubernatorial elections and national party politics in history

In this section, we will trace how the governing LDP or opposition parties such as the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) historically have failed to influence the outcome of Tokyo gubernatorial elections when they have insisted on conducting candidate selection and election campaigns under the leadership of party headquarters.

Historically, the relationship between Tokyo gubernatorial elections and party leadership has been complicated, as illustrated by the 1967 election. In that case, there was disagreement between the LDP’s headquarters and the party’s Tokyo metropolitan federation over the selection of a candidate for governor. The metropolitan federation is a local organization of each party consisting of members of the Diet with constituencies in Tokyo, members of the Metropolitan Assembly, and members of ward, city, town, and village assemblies in Tokyo. The LDP frontrunner was former civil servant Shunichi Suzuki, who had been Governor Ryotaro Azuma’s deputy governor for 8 years and was considered by the party’s metropolitan federation the likeliest to succeed him. However, Prime Minister Eisaku Sato feared that Suzuki could not win the election because “the title of ‘Deputy Governor’ inevitably gives the impression of someone in a secondary position” (Asahi Shinbun 1967a). Despite strong opposition from Metropolitan Assembly members of the LDP who supported Suzuki, Prime Minister Sato, as the leader of the LDP, forced his policy of supporting Masatoshi Matsushita, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) candidate who was the president of Rikkyo University, even though there was no policy common ground between the LDP and DSP. Sato’s action failed to produce unity in the Matsushita camp, where there continued to be mutual distrust between the LDP and DSP and consequent lackluster support for the candidate. In the end, Matsushita lost to progressive Ryokichi Minobe, a Marxist economics professor at the Tokyo University of Education, who had run under the JSP and JCP banner (Asahi Shinbun 1967b).

It was true that Minobe had a new type of appeal to voters consisting of two elements when he was first elected in 1967. One was friendliness and the other was a confrontational stance toward the LDP national government. He was a regular on a Sunday night NHK program called Easy Economics Classroom, broadcast in the early 1960s. It was a program portraying a fictitious “Minobe family,” including Minobe as the father, who explained economic topics in an easy-to-understand manner as a topic of family discussion. He gained popularity through this program (NHK n.d.).

At the same time, Minobe kept his confrontational stance toward the LDP government of Prime Minister Sato. In the late 1960s, a worsening of urban problems in Japan’s major cities—most notably in Tokyo—such as housing shortages, urban sprawl, waste disposal, traffic congestion, and pollution fueled growing criticism of the LDP. This was particularly evident among voters with no party allegiance, as reflected in national election results. In the January 1967 general election, held just before the Tokyo gubernatorial race, the LDP recorded its lowest vote share both nationally and in Tokyo. The LDP government was perceived as neglecting urban issues, and its conservative gubernatorial candidate was dismissed as ineffective. These perceptions, reinforced by Governor Minobe’s emphasis on welfare and antipollution measures, also proved decisive in the 1971 election. He won the 1971 gubernatorial election by a large margin of 3.61 million votes to 1.93 million, after criticizing the LDP government as advancing militarism and claiming that the LDP gubernatorial candidate was Sato’s proxy (Bando Reference Bando and Hibino1991: 209–219; Toki Reference Toki and Muramatsu1995a: 432–442).

When the financial restructuring of the Metropolitan Government in a low-growth economy following the 1973 oil crisis became the imperative, Minobe’s continued emphasis on high-level welfare and insistence on an ideological confrontation with the LDP government came to be questioned. In the following election in 1975, Minobe argued that the LDP nominee, right-wing Shintaro Ishihara, would make the Metropolitan Government fascist. In response, Ishihara criticized the high level of welfare, a selling point of the progressive Minobe administration, as the cause of Tokyo’s ballooning budget deficit. Minobe was elected, but by a narrow margin of 2.68 million votes to 2.33 million (Bando Reference Bando and Hibino1991: 219–236; Toki Reference Toki and Muramatsu1995a: 442–447). A 1978 poll indicated that the public disliked ideological confrontation in metropolitan politics and wanted instead a pragmatic governor (Toki Reference Toki1995b: 112). Thus, after the oil crisis of 1973, when the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s finances fell into deficit under low economic growth, a metropolitan governor was increasingly expected to demonstrate administrative ability capable of overcoming such economic hardship.

Conditions emerged that allowed Suzuki (Deputy Governor, 1959-1967) to re-establish himself as a strong candidate. After the 1967 Tokyo gubernatorial election, Suzuki continued to hold such important positions as secretary general of the Japan World Exposition Association and chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Expressway Public Corporation. In the 1979 Tokyo gubernatorial election, Suzuki was supported by the LDP, Komeito, and DSP, and faced Kaoru Ota, the former chairperson of the General Council of Trade Unions in Japan. Here, the progressive side was affected by difficulty in unifying their will. In 1978, Ota announced that he would run for governor of Tokyo, hoping to be supported by the JSP and JCP as the retiring governor Minobe had been. However, Ichio Asukata, the chairperson of the JSP, was reluctant to endorse Ota, considering him too much of a leftist and too connected with labor unions. Retiring Minobe also distrusted Ota, who had often bad-mouthed him, so he declared himself neutral, refusing to support Ota. This infighting is believed to have favored Suzuki, who defeated Ota by 1.9 million votes to 1.5 million (Bando Reference Bando and Hibino1991: 238–39; 245–46; Table 1).

The end of national political parties leading the Tokyo gubernatorial election

The conservative LDP and centrist Komeito/DSP support system worked through Suzuki’s third victory in 1987; the 1991 gubernatorial election disturbed this equilibrium, ushering in a period in which the ability of national political parties to lead a gubernatorial election and decisively influence its outcome became increasingly limited. In the 1991 election, the LDP national headquarters believed that Suzuki could not win again and opposed his bid. He was criticized for his multiple terms, his advanced age of 80 years, and the exclusivity of his administrative technocracy. Moreover, the 240 m new Metropolitan Government Building at Shinjuku (Photo 1), completed in December 1990, was criticized as luxurious and extravagant (Nakano Reference Nakano1992: 261–296). There were also financial concerns with waterfront subcenter development in the Tokyo Bay area. In the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, Komeito also expressed dissatisfaction with the inadequate supply of public housing (Mitsunobu Reference Mitsunobu2011).

Photo 1: The new Tokyo Metropolitan Government building at Shinjuku. [Caption: This building was designed by Kenzo Tange, one of the most famous Japanese architects. Taken by Sanshiro Hasegawa in 2024].

Accordingly, the LDP’s Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa suggested the main newscaster of NHK’s evening news, Hisanori Isomura, who was in his early 60s and gave a suave impression. The headquarters of the LDP, the DSP, and Komeito endorsed Isomura, but the metropolitan federations of the LDP and the DSP supported Suzuki. It was a rare case in which the party headquarters and the party’s metropolitan federation endorsed different candidates, and the two were at odds with each other; even in the 1967 election, the LDP metropolitan federation, which wished to endorse Suzuki, ultimately followed the policy of Prime Minister Sato to endorse Matsushita. In 1991, Suzuki attracted sympathy for the cold treatment he received from the LDP headquarters and defeated Isomura by 2.29 million votes to 1.43 million, with criticisms of his multiple terms and advanced age being overshadowed. Newspapers reported that voters were dismayed by the performance of his opponent, the suave Isomura, who was instructed by the LDP’s headquarters to pretend to be a commoner, including taking a bath in a public bathhouse (Yomiuri Shinbun 1991). Following the election, Ozawa resigned as the LDP’s secretary-general owing to this electoral outcome (Toki Reference Toki1992: 249–256; Toki Reference Toki and Muramatsu1995a: 461–466). Newspapers at the time noted that the resignation of Ozawa, the LDP’s powerful secretary general, was seen as an upheaval for national politics, while the results of the Tokyo gubernatorial election were described as an expression of Tokyo residents’ dissatisfaction with the existing political parties (Asahi Shinbun 1991).

After the 1991 election, the Metropolitan Government was again taken up by the pragmatic and competent bureaucrat Suzuki, supported by all parties except the JCP. Suzuki had a strong sense of pride as a bureaucrat who specialized in local autonomy, and he was full of confidence in his administrative abilities. He sought to be a solemn administrative guru and did not inform the people of Tokyo of the substance of his administration or his governance vision and philosophy. Although Suzuki received temporary sympathy from voters owing to his cold treatment by the LDP in the 1991 election, toward the end of his fourth term he was regarded as a dictatorial administrator as he pushed ahead with the financially burdensome and much doubted waterfront subcenter development project even after the burst of the bubble economy (Sasaki Reference Sasaki2011: 47–48). The people of Tokyo were no longer content with the Suzuki administration’s attitude that the citizens, who were laypeople, should leave matters of metropolitan governance to them, the experts. Political scientist, Hiroshi Toki, citing a 1995 newspaper article, pointed out that some senior officials in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government considered that any post-Suzuki governor should not be a professional administrator (Toki Reference Toki1995b: 2, 100).

Nevertheless, the LDP’s headquarters made the same mistake three times in the five gubernatorial elections between 1995 and 2016 by selecting a candidate from the bureaucracy. For the 1995 Tokyo gubernatorial election, the LDP nominated Nobuo Ishihara, who had long served as deputy chief cabinet secretary, to succeed retiring Suzuki, and many parties, including the JSP and Komeito, supported Ishihara. However, the Independent Yukio Aoshima, an actor/comedian/writer and an independent member of the House of Councilors, was elected. Ishihara was a veteran bureaucrat similar to the retiring Suzuki. During the election campaign, Aoshima did not make outdoor speeches or use campaign vehicles, relying only on TV political broadcasts and posters (Yamazaki Reference Yamazaki2002: 601–602). Aoshima’s individualistic campaign tactics were considered a “challenge to the bureaucratic candidate and bureaucratic politics” and appealed particularly to swing voters. The image of the governor thus changed from a competent bureaucrat to one who was approachable and nonpartisan—one who challenged the existing system (Toki Reference Toki2003: 111–112).

Unlike Suzuki who seemed aloof from the public, Governor Aoshima had friendliness as his selling point but was later seen as a pushover, leading to a decline in his appeal as governor. He implemented his promise to cancel the World Urban Exposition but then ignored other key promises, appearing to be swallowed up by the Metropolitan Government bureaucracy (Sasaki Reference Sasaki2011: 48–50; Toki Reference Toki2003: 109–118). He abruptly announced shortly before the 1999 election that he would not run. Someone who was close to the voters but who could demonstrate leadership and execution without being taken in by political parties or officials was desired.

In the 1999 election, the LDP again nominated a bureaucrat candidate, Yasushi Akashi, under secretary-general of the United Nations, to succeed retiring Aoshima, but Shintaro Ishihara, a writer and right-wing LDP member of the National Diet, was elected as an independent thanks to his strong leadership qualities. The race was crowded, with six leading candidates. Because Aoshima was buried by the bureaucracy and had failed to demonstrate leadership, this trait became an election issue, and “character and style came to the fore rather than policy” (Toki Reference Toki2003: 119). Ishihara, with his slogan of saying no to the state, was considered to deliver a clear and powerful message, and he gained broad support. According to an exit poll, Ishihara received the highest shares of votes among voters who supported no party and among LDP supporters, as well as the second-highest share among supporters of the largest opposition party (Yamazaki Reference Yamazaki2002: 686–690).

After his first electoral win, the LDP supported Ishihara in metropolitan governance. Although Ishihara declined formal endorsement from the party in all three subsequent gubernatorial elections, the LDP’s metropolitan federation actively mobilized organizational support for his reelection campaigns. After his fourth election in 2011, Ishihara resigned as governor of Tokyo to return to national politics, and appointed writer Naoki Inose, whom he had recruited as deputy governor from outside party politics, as his successor. Inose, supported by the LDP and Komeito, won the 2012 election by a landslide but resigned owing to violations related to election campaign finance. He was succeeded in the 2014 election by Yoichi Masuzoe, an international political scientist and member of the Diet who had once belonged to the LDP. In the 2014 election, he was supported by the metropolitan federations of the LDP and Komeito. Masuzoe also resigned owing to allegations about political funds and other matters. In the 2016 election to determine his successor, the candidates promoted by the existing political parties were again defeated. The LDP and Komeito nominated Hiroya Masuda, a former bureaucrat in the Ministry of Construction who had served three terms as governor of Iwate Prefecture and was a cabinet minister in charge of local government matters in the LDP administrations of Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda. The largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, with the JCP, the SDP, and others, endorsed Shuntaro Torigoe, a journalist and television news presenter. However, it was Yuriko Koike that won the election as an independent. A Yomiuri Shimbun exit poll found that 49% of independents voted for Koike, 19% for Masuda, and 18% for Torigoe. Among LDP supporters, 55% voted for Koike and only 36% for Masuda (Yomiuri Shinbun 2016a).

In 2016, Koike announced her candidacy for the Tokyo gubernatorial election but did so without prior consultation with the LDP to which she belonged. She soon sought the endorsement of the LDP, but the LDP was displeased with her candidacy announcement, which was made without the party’s permission, and decided that any member who supported her would be expelled (Koizumi et al. Reference Koizumi, Ueda, Makino and Imanishi2016). Koike withdrew her endorsement request and declared that she would run for office as an independent against the LDP candidate, creating a confrontation between Koike, cast as a reformist challenger, and the LDP (Asahi Shinbun 2016b; Yomiuri Shinbun 2016b). Moreover, while the LDP candidate Masuda, former governor of Iwate Prefecture, was not familiar to LDP supporters, Koike, a Diet member with a Tokyo constituency, was seen by supporters as the genuine LDP candidate (Miyashita Reference Miyashita2016). As for the opposition parties’ candidate, television news presenter Shuntaro Torigoe’s name recognition was second only to Koike’s, but he lacked political experience. Moreover, he lost support when two weekly magazines published articles during the election campaign with allegations that he had forced a former female university student into a sexual relationship with him years earlier (Asahi Shinbun 2016a). Furthermore, although he spent much of his campaign time criticizing the LDP government and defending the Constitution, he himself admitted that he was not well prepared regarding various issues confronting the Metropolitan Government (Asahi Shinbun 2016c).

Thus, examining Tokyo gubernatorial elections over time, we have seen that when the national party intervened against a candidate that was supported by the local party members, it was unlikely to see a victory. If the local party capitulated and supported the national party’s candidate, the opposition was likely to win, but if the local party fielded their own candidate, in opposition to the national party candidate, the local party candidate was likely to win. Of course, perceptions of basic competency of the candidate also played a role.

Despite Koike’s challenging relationship with the national party over the years, as part of its campaign in the 2024 Tokyo gubernatorial election, the opposing Renho camp harshly criticized Koike for having the backing of the national LDP government. The LDP could not support Koike prominently because the party faced strong criticism related to misuse of political funds that had come to light late the previous year, and it feared public outrage hurting its candidates. Therefore, LDP politicians refrained from holding street rallies so as not to provoke voters, and instead focused their efforts on securing votes from party and business organizations. There was a sense of crisis within the party that a loss in the Tokyo gubernatorial election could trigger a change of national government, as the LDP had lost all three lower house by-elections in April, and the Cabinet’s approval rating remained sluggish (Ueda Reference Ueda2024; Takeuchi et al. Reference Takeuchi, Gemma, Uchida and Shirakawa2024). The opposition parties that supported Renho aimed to increase criticism among the public of the LDP-supported Metropolitan Government by tying it to national politics, particularly the irregularities related to political funding. Public opinion on the issue was harsh but the opposing camp’s attempts to link the issue to the gubernatorial election were successfully dodged by Koike, who emphasized her accomplishments during her two terms as governor of Tokyo. The opposition camp’s strategy did not work to their benefit, as Renho came in third, which was seen as particularly damaging for Ritsumin (Yomiuri Shinbun 2024). What resonated more with voters was criticism of conventional party politics itself, rather than criticism of specific parties.