THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
March 25, 2020 at 16:45 JST
The Tokyo chapter of the Liberal Democratic Party abandoned plans to field a candidate against Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike this summer, figuring momentous issues are looming with the new coronavirus outbreak and the decision to postpone the 2020 Olympic Games.
The decision announced March 24 is at odds with its lingering resentment of Koike for crushing the LDP candidate in the 2016 gubernatorial election.
The branch set up a committee last summer to search for a worthy candidate to take on Koike in the election to be held on July 5, but those efforts went nowhere.
On March 24, Toshihiro Nikai, the secretary-general of the party proper, met with Naoki Takashima, the secretary-general of the Tokyo branch.
Nikai had long contended there was no individual capable of defeating Koike, 67, this summer, but the Tokyo branch refused to abandon the quest until the meeting on March 24.
The coronavirus outbreak and the decision to postpone the Tokyo Olympics offers the LDP branch the perfect excuse to pull out gracefully and not oppose Koike further.
It would likely have faced harsh public criticism if it was seen to be interfering with moves by Koike to deal with the outbreak when infections in Tokyo were rising and the governor is tasked with drawing up new plans for the Olympics next year.
In fact, Takashima told Nikai during their meeting that the LDP bloc in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly would vote for the budget to be presented for fiscal 2020, unlike its policy for the previous two years.
The LDP branch knows only all too well what results when Koike is opposed. During the 2017 metropolitan assembly election, the LDP was handed a historic defeat when Koike set up her own local party known as Tomin First no Kai (Tokyo residents first association).
Tomin First no Kai, along with Komeito, which partnered with Koike even though at the national level it is the junior coalition partner of the LDP, won a majority of seats in the metropolitan assembly. The LDP ended up half of the seats it held before the election.
And with a metropolitan assembly election scheduled for 2021, the LDP branch likely decided that maintaining a confrontational stance against Koike was not a politically astute thing to do.
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