LDP-Backed Koja Wins Okinawa Governor Poll

Naha, Okinawa Pref., Sept. 13 (Jiji Press)--Genta Koja won Sunday's gubernatorial election in Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, bringing the Liberal Democratic Party back into power in the prefectural government for the first time in 12 years.

The 42-year-old former vice mayor of Naha, Okinawa's capital, was up against 66-year-old Denny Tamaki, who had sought a third term as Okinawa governor, and four other candidates.

Koja takes a position accepting the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air base in Ginowan to the Henoko district in Nago, another city in Okinawa.

Okinawa's prefectural politics, long marked by fierce opposition between conservative and reformist forces mainly over the relocation issue, may be at a turning point.

Koja is the first governor of Okinawa to have been born after 1972, when the prefecture was returned to Japan. He will be the youngest elected governor of the prefecture.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]