Photo/Illutration Tokyo’s Kita Ward Mayor Yosota Hanakawa, 88, the oldest incumbent mayor in Japan, speaks to supporters after his defeat in the election on April 23. (Kae Morishita)

The oldest incumbent mayor in Japan, Tokyo’s Kita Ward Mayor Yosota Hanakawa, has been ousted by a new challenger nearly four decades his junior.

Kanako Yamada, 51, beat the 88-year-old incumbent, who was seeking his sixth term, in the April 23 election to become the ward’s first-ever female mayor.

Hanakawa ran as an independent, insisting “age doesn’t matter because I’m in good health.”

But while campaigning, Yamada told voters that a “new leader is needed to provide support to families raising children and reform local government services.”

In a major blow for Hanakawa during the race, he lost the backing of the ruling parties.

Four years ago, he had won support from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito. But this time around, the ruling parties decided that a sixth term would be one too many, and they instead threw their support behind independent Yamada, who sought the mayoralty for the first time but is no political rookie.

She had served four terms as an LDP ward assembly member and two terms as an LDP Tokyo metropolitan assembly member.

Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) also endorsed her, making it the only contest in the capital where the LDP, Komeito and Nippon Ishin had cooperated.

Hanakawa had appealed to voters by pointing to his long record in office.

“I would like you to evaluate me on my performance, ability and enthusiasm over my past five terms,” he said.

He touted his past achievements, including making school lunches free at elementary and junior high schools, and establishing a plan to construct a new local government building that will open in a decade from now.

A former LDP member of the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, Hanakawa first became mayor of Kita Ward two decades ago, in 2003. In the last election in 2019, he beat Shun Otokita, who is now an Upper House lawmaker and chairman of the Nippon Ishin policy research council.

When he announced his intent to run for re-election this year, he defended himself against the idea that he might be too old for the job since he is pushing 90.

“I am now better than ever,” Hanakawa said at a news conference in February this year. “I do not care about my age, now that more people are expected to live to 100 years and older.”

He even boasted to reporters that he can still throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game, and then pretended to wind up and throw a ball in front of them.

Hanakawa had also notably received some high-profile support during the race.

Celebrity Mikio Osawa, a former member of the idol group Hikaru Genji, who ended his candidacy just before the election campaign officially kicked off, had endorsed and campaigned with Hanakawa.

Hanakawa and Osawa, who both enjoyed high name recognition, each delivered stump speeches and rode around the ward in a campaign car together.

Osawa had announced he was supporting Hanakawa because he could “make my policies a reality.” Osawa also appeared in the photo on Hanakawa’s campaign posters.

Ai Aoki, an Upper House member from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, had also attended the official launch ceremony for Hanakawa’s campaign.

 

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