Tokyo Governor Koike Grabs More than Comfortable Majority in Metropolitan Assembly

The 127-seat Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election just over, the Tokyoites are to have a new greenish assembly under Governor Yuriko Koike who had a while back won her own gubernatorial election with more or less similar lopsided results. 

The rather odd-phrased political group "Tokyo Metropolis Residents-First Group" turned out to be not so odd at all as it wound up with a decisive majority in the assembly formerly commanded by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

LDP has lost 34 of its former 57 seats in the assembly while Governor Koike's Residents-First amassed 49 seats atop its meager pre-election 6 seats. With Komeito and other pro-Koike elements behind her, Koike now has under her command a comfortable majority of 79 in the 127-seat assembly.

The 7 single-seat constituencies formerly dominated by LDP 7-0 are now shuffled to 6-1 in favor of Koike's green candidates. All but one, Arakawa Ward, of the two-seat constituencies, are now painted equally green.

In the national political scene, Komeito has for years been in coalition with the leading LDP. In the metropolitan assembly election, however. Komeito opted to team with Koike and won paradoxically exactly the same number of seats as LDP - 23 each.

Back in 2009, LDP had ended up with 38 seats in the assembly election and it just set a new record for the worse with 23. H. Shimomura, chief secretary of LDP's Tokyo metropolitan leg, submitted a resignation from the post past midnight July 2.

Another focal point of the metropolitan assembly election was whether or not the Japan Communist Party would manage to retain its 17 seats in the assembly. It so turned out the JCP gained two to boost its seats to 19.

Mindful political watchers wonder how Tokyo's assembly election outcome will, in turn, affect the national political scene. (Nathan Shiga) 

Sorce: Nikkei