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Friends,
The exciting news today is that despite the political pressure and attempt at vote buying by Japan’s LDP government, the people of Nago in Okinawa, voters returned anti-base mayor Inamine to office in a landslide victory. Australian Japan scholar Gavan McCormack described it this way:
"It is an absolutely astonishing victory, with implications far beyond Nago and far beyond Henoko (though that of course has been the obvious central issue). I did not dare to believe it could be possible.
"The Japanese nation state threw everything at this election. So did the LDP, and so did the Governor.
So did large national organizations such as Nihon kaigi and Sankei shimbun. Yet Nago was not to be conquered.
"No local government has ever resisted the will of the centre in anything like such an issue of high priority to government (and to the "alliance"). Henoko, I think we can now say, is dead in the water."
Work for Peace,
Joseph Gerson
Japan
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www.asiapacificinitiative.org |
