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.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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