2002 Amagasaki mayoral election

Amagasaki, Hyōgo held a mayoral election on November 17, 2002. Aya Shirai, backed by the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and the local group Amagasaki Residents Group for Democratic City Administration defeated the incumbent Yoshio Miyata, who had been mayor since before the Great Hanshin Earthquake[1] and ran on a platform of cutting costs.[2] Miyata had been heavily favored in the race[3] but later came under criticism for his willingness to accept over 35 million yen in severance pay from the city.[4] Miyata's loss effectively marked the end of the Five Party Cooperative Alliance (Rengō Gotō Kyōgikai) that had been established in 1994 to combat the influence of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party in Hyōgo Prefecture;[5] Miyata's victory in Amagasaki in 1994 had been the first electoral victory of the Alliance.

Historically, this was the second time a woman was elected mayor in Hyogo Prefecture, and was a precursor to the city electing the youngest female mayor in Japanese history, Kazumi Inamura, in 2010.[6] This represented the first time successive women had been elected mayor in Japan, evidence of a shift from the previous lack of women acting as heads of local and prefectural governments, and has been attributed in part to women's activism in the wake of the Great Hanshin Earthquake.[7] According to Atsushi Tsujikawa, as "an event symbolic of the period", Shirai's election was "featured widely in mass media and became a topic of conversation throughout the country."[8]

Amagasaki mayoral election, 2002: Amagasaki
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
JCP Aya Shirai 62,308 52.1
LDP, DPJ, NKP, NCP Yoshio Miyata 57,385 47.9

References
  1. http://www.archives.city.amagasaki.hyogo.jp/apedia/index.php?key=尼崎市長
  2. http://amanetzh.com/hukusizh/amasakugen.htm
  3. Sunday Mainichi, Volume 82, Number 1 (2003), p.147.
  4. "Amagasaki shichōsen: Shimin to Nihon Kyōsantō ga kyōdō", Shimbun Akahata, 19 November 2012. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
  5. Katsutoshi Kuroda and Mikio Wakabayashi, "Hatsu no tōitsu kenpō shūkai: Minshū to kyōsan kikikan kyōyū", Kobe Shimbun, 7 May 2016. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
  6. "Kazumi Inamura receives 54% of the vote to become the first Green mayor elected in Japan". Global Greens. 2010-11-22. Retrieved 2018-06-03.
  7. Akio Igarashi and Miranda A. Schreurs, Jōsei ga seiji wo kaeru toki: Giin, shichō, chiji no keiken [When Women Change Politics: The Experiences of Representatives, Mayors, and Governors] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2012), p. 311-316.
  8. 「そういった時代を象徴するできごとのひとつとしてマスコミに大きく取り上げられ、全国的に話題を呼びました。」Atsushi Tsujikawa, "Hanshin/Awaji daishinsai ga motarashita mono" ["Effects of the Hanshin/Awaji Disaster"]. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
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