TOKYO: A candidate backed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's party was soundly defeated in a key local election on Sunday, Kyodo news agency reported, in a blow to plans to relocate a controversial U.S. air base on Okinawa island, home to the bulk of U.S. military forces in Japan.
Delays in relocating the U.S. Marines' Futenma air base in Okinawa have long been an irritant in U.S.-Japan relations. Abe is keen to make progress on the project as he seeks tighter ties with Washington in the face of an assertive China.
Kyodo said after the polls closed that its projections showed a former mayor, Takeshi Onaga, was certain to defeat incumbent Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima.
Nakaima, who ran with the backing of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, had approved a U.S.-Japan plan to relocate Futenma to a less populous part of the island.
Onaga, a conservative who once supported the base move to coastal northern Okinawa, later changed his mind to say he wanted it out of the prefecture. His platform was also critical of other Abe policies, such as the use of nuclear power.
Nakaima's loss is a headache for Abe, but was unlikely to affect his expected decision to postpone an unpopular sales tax hike and call a snap election to try to secure his grip on power while his voter support is still relatively robust.
Ruling party politicians have said Abe could announce as early as Tuesday that he will delay a planned rise in the sales tax to 10 percent from next October and call a general election for Dec. 14.
Politics in Okinawa, where many residents associate the U.S. military bases with crime, accidents and noise pollution, often operate on different dynamics than elsewhere in Japan. Many want the base removed entirely, rather than simply relocated.
Abe returned to power in December 2012 pledging to revive the economy with a mix of hyper-easy monetary policy, spending and reforms. Opposition politicians say delaying the tax hike would show that his "Abenomics" growth strategy has failed.
Abe raised the sales tax to 8 percent from 5 percent in April, sparking Japan's biggest economic contraction since the 2009 global financial crisis in the April-June quarter.
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