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What next for Okinawa’s anti-base alliance after Japan election loss?

PressNewsAgency
By PressNewsAgency

The broad anti-base alliance that has shaped Okinawa’s politics for nearly a decade is reeling after a bruising election defeat, raising questions about the future of organised resistance to the US military presence on Japan’s southernmost islands.
All Okinawa – a coalition of opposition parties and civic groups that backs Governor Denny Tamaki and campaigns to curb the US military footprint in the prefecture – failed to win a single one of Okinawa’s four single-seat constituencies in the February 8 lower house election.
Instead, all four seats went to candidates from Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Ruing the movement’s defeat at a press conference the following day, Tamaki blamed the outcome on “the sudden gust of the Takaichi whirlwind”.

All Okinawa brings together a broad spectrum of opposition forces, including the local branches of the Japanese Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Okinawa Social Mass Party.

The groups are united by a pledge to halt construction of a new US military facility in the coastal district of Henoko – planned as a replacement for the US Marine Corps’ Futenma air station – and to reduce the burden placed on the prefecture by the heavy concentration of American forces.

Ahead of the vote, members of the alliance – known locally as “Okinawa zenken” – had voiced cautious optimism. The scale of the subsequent setback has since prompted debate over whether the movement is losing its hold on voters, and why.

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