Japanese residents elect mayor opposing US base
Tokyo (AFP)
By Kyoko Hasegawa
January 24, 2010
Japanese voters in a city on Okinawa island elected a mayor Sunday who opposes plans for a controversial new US air base, complicating a row with Washington over relocating troops.
Two candidates in Nago city were squaring off over whether or not to give local support to a plan — currently under review by the centre-left national government — to build a major new Marine Corps air base there.
Susumu Inamine, 64, who campaigned on a platform of rejecting the base, ousted Yoshikazu Shimabukuro, 63, with a more-than 1,500-strong majority.
Official figures showed nearly 77 percent turnout by the city’s 45,000 voters.
“I’ve run this election campaign with the pledge of not to build a base” in the coastal area of Nago city, Inamone told more than a hundred of his supporters who shouted and applauded in rapture. “I’ll keep to this campaign promise with firm conviction,” he said.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has said he may scrap an agreement with Washington to relocate the base from its current site in a crowded urban area of Okinawa to a quieter coastal site in the Nago area by 2014.
The issue has strained ties between Tokyo and Washington, which marked the 50th anniversary of their security pact last Tuesday, since Japan’s new leaders took power four months ago ending a half-century of conservative rule.
The southern island of Okinawa, which saw some of the bloodiest battles of World War II, hosts more than half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan.
While some local businesses benefit from the heavy American military presence, many residents have long opposed it, citing crimes committed by servicemen as well as noise, pollution and the threat of accidents. …
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