Ex-MITI official Ota to run in election for Osaka governor

Japan Policy & Politics, Jan 17, 2000

OSAKA, Jan. 10 Kyodo

Former senior trade ministry official Fusae Ota announced Monday she will run in the Osaka gubernatorial election to be held Feb. 6.

The election is to fill the post left vacant by Gov. Knock Yokoyama, who resigned after being indicted for molesting a woman assistant in his reelection campaign in April last year.

Speaking at a press conference in Osaka, Ota, 48, a former councilor of the Secretariat at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), said, "To get involved in local administration, I mustered my courage to make this decision."

She said she will put steps for economic recovery and promoting administrative and fiscal reforms high on her agenda.

If elected, Ota will be the first female governor in Japan.

The Osaka arm of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) and the Kansai Economic Federation (Kankeiren) had asked Ota to run for governor.

In the wake of Ota's announcement, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Democratic Party of Japan, the New Komeito party and the Liberal Party will soon decide to recommend her, party sources said. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) is also considering supporting Ota, SDP sources said.

The LDP's Osaka prefectural federation of party branches, however, has decided not to back Ota because it thinks the party headquarters ignored its advice on the choice of a candidate.

The prefectural federation decided Monday by a majority vote to recommend Tatsuto Hiraoka, 59, senior managing director of the Osaka-based private school group Seifu Gakuen, as the local candidate, federation members said.

Upon the recommendation, Hiraoka announced at a press conference that he would run for the Osaka governorship.

On Dec. 29, Rengo Osaka and the Osaka-based business lobby Kankeiren launched a support group for Ota and called on political parties to support her.

Kansai University Professor Emeritus Makoto Ajisaka, 66, recommended by the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), has already announced his candidacy for the governorship.

Ota, a native of Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, once worked in Osaka as the chief of the general affairs and planning section of the Kinki Regional Bureau of MITI.

For two years from 1997, she served as Okayama vice governor. She is now a resident of Suita in Osaka Prefecture.

Yokoyama, who ran as an independent, won a second four-year term in the April election, drawing a record 2.35 million votes for an Osaka gubernatorial election.

In mid-December, Yokoyama was ordered by the Osaka District Court to pay 11 million yen in compensation to the campaign assistant, a university student, who had filed a civil suit against him.

Yokoyama, once a member of a popular comedy trio and a House of Councillors member, resigned Dec. 21.