News Gov. Tamaki wins re-election in Okinawa

He handily defeated his main rival, Atsushi Sakima, who was backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, in the Sept. 11 gubernatorial election. The key issue in the election, as it has been in the past, was the central government's project to build landfill to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan to close to Nago, both in the prefecture. Tamaki, who is 62 and was backed by the opposition bloc, asserts that the hugely costly and vastly unpopular base project will never be completed due to the state of the soft seabed discovered in the area after reclamation work began. The latest election was the seventh since the proposal to build a new U.S. base off the Henoko district of Nago surfaced. It coincided with the 50th anniversary this year of the southernmost prefecture's return to Japan after years of U.S. military rule following the end of World War II.

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