LOWEST OKINAWAN VOTER TURNOUT SINCE REVERSION, CONSERVATIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 NAHA 000065 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 4/25/2032 TAGS: PGOV MARR JA SUBJECT: LOWEST OKINAWAN VOTER TURNOUT SINCE REVERSION, CONSERVATIVE WINS UPPER HOUSE BY-ELECTION, REFORMIST WINS GINOWAN MAYORAL RACE CLASSIFIED BY: Carmela A Conroy, Acting Consul General, U.S. Consulate General Naha, U.S. Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. Summary: Just 47.8% of Okinawa's eligible voters turned out for the national Diet upper house by-election, the lowest rate of participation in a national-level election since Okinawa's 1972 reversion to Japan. The ruling coalition's young female candidate defeated the consolidated reformist parties' candidate by a 5.5% margin. LDP leaders hope, and opposition leaders suspect, that Aiko SHIMAJIRI's victory will make it more difficult for the presumed female reformist candidate to succeed in the July upper house elections. The opposition candidate and the restive parties backing him failed to find a winning campaign theme. In Ginowan City, the anti-base incumbent mayor easily fended off a weak conservative opponent. Yoichi IHA took nearly 55% of the vote due to his challenger's "boring," unmotivated stumping style. Opposition parties and the media are struggling to cope with an Okinawan public increasingly interested in candidates who might thicken Okinawan pocketbooks, rather than those promising to lighten the military "burden." End Summary. LDP/Komeito's Unlikely Candidate Takes Previously Reformist Upper House Seat ¶2. (C) As predicted by Okinawa's conservative and reformist party leadership alike, the inexperienced, unknown conservative candidate defeated her inexperienced, unknown reformist opponent in the upper house National Diet by-election. ConGen Naha's impression of both candidates was that they were both utterly lacking in experience to prepare them for national-level elected office. Nevertheless, language school owner-operator and mother-of-four Aiko SHIMAJIRI, 42, won the Upper House by-election, backed by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s heaviest hitters. ¶3. (C) Early on, LDP leadership chortled about the superior visual appeal of Aiko SHIMAJIRI relative to the reformist candidate, former Rengo Okinawa chairman Yoshimasa KARIMATA. Throughout the campaign Shimajiri stayed on message, saying she intended to change politics "from the kitchen" and focus on social welfare issues. She deflected all questions regarding military base issues by saying she would hew to the positions of conservative governor Hirokazu NAKAIMA. Prime Minister SHINZO ABE stumped on Shimajiri's behalf on Okinawa's main island as well as in Miyako Jima, hometown of Shimajiri's opponent, as well as her husband and in-laws. NAHA 00000065 002 OF 005 ¶4. (C) LDP Executive Director Hiroshi NAKAMATSU told us Shimajiri's win would give the LDP/Komeito alliance a head start on the July upper house elections. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)'s executive director Yasuhiro ARAKAKI and Sozo's Acting President Hiroshi GOYA confided to us that Shimajiri's candidacy had nothing to do with her qualifications, and everything to do with the July elections. The presumed reformist candidate in July would be the Okinawa Socialist Masses Party (OSMP)'s Keiko ITOKAZU, who surrendered the upper house seat being contested in this by-election to run for prefectural governor in November 2006. Shimajiri's election would put a spike through Itokazu's attempt to return to the upper house, they theorized, because Okinawan voters were unlikely to send two women in a row to the Diet. ¶5. (C) The week before the April 22 election, opposition party chiefs seemed resigned to their loss. The DPJ's Arakaki acknowledged that Karimata was a weak campaigner, and his supporting parties fragmented. Arakaki admitted to being conflicted because Shimajiri's husband, Noboru, was a founding member of the DPJ's Okinawa branch. Local contacts told the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) that Karimata had counted on his Miyako Jima connections bringing the vote, both at home and with Miyako Jima "expats" living in Okinawa's Urasoe City. Instead, the contacts said, Shimajiri's in-laws' superior popularity carried the day for their "yamatonchu" (mainland-born) daughter-in-law. ¶6. (C) Early in his campaign Karimata stumbled by calling for the total elimination of bases from Okinawa--shaking his DPJ support. He later angered supporters on the other end of the spectrum by seemingly downplaying the importance of base issues. He published a ten-point manifesto, with base issues in ninth place on the list. Questioned about that during a debate sponsored by the Ryukyu Shimpo, Karimata denied that the issues' position on the list was significant, and claimed all ten topics were of equal importance. Later in the campaign Karimata avoided military issues except when pushed by the media. His main theme was that he would work on eliminating the income disparity between Okinawa and mainland Japan, but he never developed this into a rallying cry. After the election, a high-ranking official in Karimata's campaign told reporters that labor just couldn't compete with the well-funded LDP machine and business organizations. ¶7. (C) The Okinawa Times noted that the DPJ's participation in Karimata's campaign (and Okinawan politics at large) was complicating reformists' "joint struggle." The Okinawa Times reported that even Rengo's national headquarters did not formally declare its support for Karimata "until the end" NAHA 00000065 003 OF 005 because it was unhappy about DPJ-driven changes to Karimata's campaign themes. NCIS learned from their contacts that the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) decided to concentrate its resources on the Ginowan mayoral race, and paid lip service only to Karimata's campaign. OSMP's and its star Itokazu's support for Karimata was lukewarm, as they were still grumbling that Rengo had put insufficient energy behind Itokazu in the November '06 gubernatorial campaign. Sozo, a political party founded by former LDP maverick Mikio SHIMOJI, left its members free to vote as they wished. ¶8. (U) Just 47.8% of Okinawa's eligible voters turned out for this national Diet upper house by-election, the lowest rate of participation in a national-level election since Okinawa's 1972 reversion to Japan. It "bested" the previous record low, 54.24% for the 2004 upper house election, by over six points. Shimajiri received 255,862 votes, Karimata 228,844 votes, and virtually invisible independent candidate Hiroyuki KINJO took just 9,142 votes. Anti-Military Gadfly Iha Retains Ginowan City Mayor's Office ¶9. (C) The reformist incumbent Ginowan City mayor, Yoichi IHA, 55, easily defended his seat from a conservative challenger. Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma is located roughly in the center of Ginowan City, population around 100,000. Iha has been a vocal opponent of MCAS Futenma, and his anti-base initiatives have included putting bumper stickers and magnets demanding MCAS Futenma be closed on municipal vehicles. Conservative contacts believed he was vulnerable, however, because he paid too little attention to running the city, and too much to quixotic anti-base activities. ¶10. (C) Our contacts said that the result in Ginowan City was not so much Iha winning, as conservative candidate Shingi HOKAMA losing. Prefectural Vice Governor Zengi NAKAZATO complained to ConGen Maher that Hokama had pledged to use his Ginowan City retirement bonus to fund his campaign, then reneged and expected the LDP to make up the difference. The LDP's Nakamatsu characterized Hokama as a boring speaker who was too lazy or haughty to actively campaign. The LDP wrote Ginowan City off as a loss well before the election. Prime Minister ABE did not visit Ginowan City during his April 15 visit to Okinawa, Nakamatsu said, to avoid giving Iha grounds to claim he had defeated the LDP at the highest level. ¶11. (C) With two races to draw them, 60.39% of registered voters in Ginowan City participated in the April 22 elections. In the mayoral race, Iha took 21,643 votes to Hokama's 17,801. In the upper house by-election, Ginowan City voters chose conservative candidate Shimajiri (20,247 votes) over reformist NAHA 00000065 004 OF 005 candidate Karimata (17,989 votes). During the last gubernatorial election, the majority in Ginowan City voted for conservative Nakaima. We believe that Ginowan voters' choices demonstrate that candidates' personal strengths-or lack thereof-are more important than their party support. Iha's win was a sign of Hokama's unpopularity, not of Ginowan City voters' support for the reformist agenda. Reformists Struggling to Adapt to Voters' Rebalanced Concerns ¶12. (C) Bashing the military and military bases has long been a staple of reformist campaigning in Okinawa. The results of two 2006 elections shook Okinawan reformist politicians' faith in that platform. In January 2006, voters in Nago City chose a conservative mayor who pledged to work for economic development-and would work with the central government to ensure local concerns were taken into account in relocating MCAS Futenma to Nago City. Reformist candidates pledged to demand economic development and reject the FRF. ¶13. (C) In November 2006, Okinawans chose as their governor a former Ministry of Finance bureaucrat and Okinawa Electric Company leader who focused on pocketbook issues. His opponent was reformist super-star and long-time anti-base absolutist Itokazu, who had in her 2005 upper house Diet election drawn more votes than any candidate in any Okinawan race before, or since. Prior to the gubernatorial race, LDP leaders told us that facing Itokazu as the sole opposition candidate was their worst-case scenario. In the end, though, voters decided Nakaima could better deliver on the issues they cared most about: their pocketbooks. ¶14. (C) Reformists are finally acting on what opinion surveys and voters have repeatedly shown, that Okinawans now place higher priority on pocketbook ("kurashi") issues (unemployment, access to health care, income) than on military base ("kichi") issues. As one OSMP leader put it during the campaign, "The serious disparities (in individual incomes, assets, jobs) throughout the island are increasing and causing social distress. Even with equality in opportunity, this situation is serious and needs to be addressed." ¶15. (SBU) Karimata and his supporters tried to focus on pocketbook and welfare issues. Only when prodded (usually by one of the local daily newspapers),would they roll out their traditional talking points on "base problems." They would note the need for closing MCAS Futenma immediately and relocating it outside the prefecture, or preferably, outside the country. The more extreme reformists would rail against strengthening the "base functions" in Okinawa. Quickly, however, they would return to "kurashi" issues. NAHA 00000065 005 OF 005 ¶16. (SBU) On April 5 the Okinawa Times expressed its irritation that both upper house candidates were avoiding base issues. "For the people of this prefecture," the editors asserted, "there are no issues more important than base transformation and Futenma relocation and the elimination of the safety issues regarding the facility." The paper's editors added that, "(The two candidates) must make clear their positions on base issues, including the big changes that are taking place at Kadena Air Base regarding the deployment of the Patriot missiles and F-22 and the parachute jumps." ¶17. (SBU) On April 17, the Okinawa Times ran a more forceful editorial in response to a poll it recently conducted with the Asahi Shimbun. The poll showed that 64% of Okinawan voters responded that "kurashi" issues were their top concern in the election, and just 15% cited "kichi" issues as the most important topic. "What is this all about?" the editors fumed. "Have the people of Okinawa forgotten the pain associated with the unresolved base issues such as Futenma relocation -- ten years after the release of the [Special Action Committee on Okinawa] final report?" ¶18. (SBU) In an April 23 editorial, the Ryukyu Shimpo acknowledged that the voters showed that they were interested in "realistic responses" to practical issues, rather than philosophical "island of bases" versus "island of peace" arguments traditionally dividing reformists from conservatives in Okinawa. Okinawa Times editors admitted there was public support for Shimajiri's theme, that "kurashi no mondai" (lifestyle problems) had superceded "kichi no mondai" (base problems). ¶19. (SBU) Both papers went on to argue that, despite the ruling parties' victory, the GOJ must tread carefully on the Futenma replacement facility, as it could be interpreted as increasing the base burden on Okinawa, ergo increasing the "disparity" between Okinawa and mainland Japan. The Okinawa Times chided its readers, "We must not turn our eyes away from the historical facts regarding the oppression of the peoples' "kurashi" by the U.S. base presence." The Ryukyu Shimpo asserted that the July elections -- the most important political battle of the year -- would be a referendum on the ABE Administration. Comment: We have observed that, for the Okinawa newspapers, the next election is invariably the most important political battle of the year. End Comment. CONROY