Photo/Illutration A central government building housing the Cabinet Office (The Asahi Shimbun)

The Cabinet Office has slashed the amount it is seeking from the annual budget for the promotion of Okinawa, a move that lands just before the prefectural gubernatorial race kicks off.

The office plans to request 279.8 billion yen ($2.04 billion) for next year’s budget for the promotion of Okinawa, which is about 20 billion yen less than last year’s budget request.

Okinawa’s prefectural government has called for more than 300 billion yen for fiscal 2023. That is around the level the Cabinet Office had requested for more than a decade, until its budget request dipped below the 300-billion-yen mark for the first time for fiscal 2022.

The 279.8 billion yen would include 76.2 billion yen in grants, which the prefectural government could spend at its discretion. That is on par with last year’s request.

The plan to scale back the funding on the one hand appears to be aimed at punishing Okinawa’s government.

A member of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Research Commission for the Promotion and Development of Okinawa, a panel tasked with discussing funding for the prefecture, called the lower budget request a “rebuke” to prefectural officials.

The LDP panel accused the prefectural government of handling the coronavirus pandemic poorly, saying Okinawa’s infection level--the worst in the country--can be blamed on its low vaccination rate.

It also criticized the prefectural government for years of failing to properly manage past funding and carry over the leftover funds into the next fiscal year.

But the budget request, set on Aug. 23, also comes at a politically sensitive time for the southernmost prefecture.

Official campaigning for the gubernatorial election begins on Aug. 25, with voting on Sept. 11.

Governor Denny Tamaki, 62, who is opposed to the central government’s controversial project to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan within the prefecture, is seeking re-election.

His challengers are Atsushi Sakima, 58, a former mayor of Ginowan who lost to Tamaki in the previous gubernatorial race four years ago, and Mikio Shimoji, 61, a former Cabinet minister for postal service privatization.

Sakima, backed by the ruling coalition of the LDP and Komeito, endorses the U.S. base relocation project under the slogan "shift to dialogue from confrontation."

He is pledging to work to bring more than 350 billion yen from national coffers annually for promoting Okinawa, by drawing on his close ties with the LDP administration.

Shimoji, a former Diet member, is advocating for a partial modification of the Futenma relocation plan.

The sum for the island’s promotion and development tends to fluctuate based on how cooperative the prefectural government is with the central government.

In 2013, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to set aside more than 300 billion yen a year until fiscal 2021, as he expected Governor Hirokazu Nakaima to agree to the relocation project.

The budget surged to 350.1 billion yen for fiscal 2014.

But in the years following the election of former Governor Takeshi Onaga, an opponent of the base relocation, the central government tightened its purse strings.

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