Osaka Voters Reject Status Quo Of Japan's Main Parties

By MARI IWATA

TOKYO--Voters in Japan's third largest city of Osaka rejected the political status quo at both local and national levels Sunday, electing a former governor over a candidate backed by both the ruling and main opposition parties in a mayoral poll.

While the official result was still pending late yesterday, Toru Hashimoto, who stood down as governor of Osaka Prefecture to stand in the race for city mayor, looked certain to win the election on a platform of merging the prefecture and city. His rival, Kunio Hiramatsu, who fought a largely negative campaign claiming Mr. Hashimoto had an authoritarian approach, conceded defeat barely an hour after polls closed.

Through his ambitious streamlining plan, Mr. Hashimoto hopes to cut back on overlapping functions and expenditure in Osaka, and create a new local government entity that can better tackle Osaka's budgetary issues, a familiar problem for provincial cities throughout Japan.

His victory is symbolic of rising grassroots political movements in Japan that are looking to empower local people to take care of the reforms seen as necessary at the provincial level. While the nation's main political parties have long talked about their zeal to adjust the balance of power between central and local government, a paucity of action by the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and previous administrations of the Liberal Democratic Party suggests this may be little more than lip service from Tokyo-centric parties.

"Voters have become really tired of the existing parties," Mr. Hashimoto said at a press conference called Sunday evening after it became clear he would win the election. "The DPJ, LDP and the Japanese Communist Party all failed to propose any policies or initiatives in this election."

This will be the DPJ's second defeat in a major local election this year, following the Nagoya mayoral election in February. In that poll, the DPJ's candidate lost against Takashi Kawamura who leads another local, grassroots party. Until then, Nagoya had been known as a bastion of support for the DPJ, whose voters have a mainly urban profile.

Similarly faced with a choice between more of the same or change, Osaka's electorate voted for Mr. Hashimoto. An exit poll conducted by national broadcaster NHK indicated that 60% of respondents had voted for the former governor. Mr. Hashimoto claimed victory around 9 p.m. local time, barely an hour after the polls closed.

Ichiro Matsui, Mr. Hashimoto's ally in the gubernatorial race held the same day, also claimed victory, clearing the way for Hashimoto's Osaka Ishin-no-Kai party to forge ahead with its reform drive.

Write to Mari Iwata at mari.iwata@dowjones.com