Opposition scores as local elections in Japan draw to a close

Apr 22, 2007, 12:55 GMT

Tokyo - Overshadowed by the recent murder of the Nagasaki mayor, local elections were underway in Japan on Sunday.

According to media reports, the largest opposition Democratic Party (DPJ) managed to secure a seat in important by-elections to the national upper house.

The polls, in which many mayors of towns and villages were elected, were widely seen as a test for the elections to the upper house this July.

During the election campaign, five days ago, a gunman shot the mayor of the south-western Japanese city of Nagasaki, Itcho Ito.

The perpetrator, who is in custody, was supposedly involved in a row with the city council.

The upper house by-elections in the provinces of Fukushima and Okinawa were the centre of attention.

In Fukushima, the DPJ candidate beat his opponent of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Okinawa was set for a neck-and-neck electoral race.

In the mayoral elections in Nagasaki, the son-in-law of murdered mayor Ito, who had been the favourite for a fourth term in office, was running against four other candidates.

In the first of two countrywide local election rounds on April 8, the LDP of party and government chief Abe had lost several seats in provincial assemblies, while the opposition DPJ managed to significantly increase their presence mainly in urban constituencies.

However, the LDP had decided important governorship elections in its favour, including the re-election of the nationalist governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara.