The victory of Yuriko Koike in the Tokyo gubernatorial election on Sunday represents the success of the former Liberal Democratic Party Diet member's campaign strategy of casting herself as a lone wolf fighting the LDP organization that refused to endorse her in the race. Now she faces the more difficult task of working with the metropolitan assembly — including the LDP-Komeito majority alliance that backed her rival candidate, who ended a distant runner-up — to carry out her promised reforms in the administration of the nation's capital.
In the race to fill the vacancy of Yoichi Masuzoe, who resigned in June after coming under fire for the misappropriation of millions of yen in political funds, LDP votes were split for the first time in the Tokyo gubernatorial election since 1990. Koike, the party's locally elected Lower House member, was the first to announce her candidacy. She did so without obtaining the support of the LDP's Tokyo chapter, which instead fielded Hiroya Masuda, a former Iwate governor and internal affairs and communications minister.
The outcome was a resounding win for Koike, who won 2.91 million votes against Masuda's 1.79 million. Veteran journalist Shuntaro Torigoe, jointly fielded by four opposition parties, which hoped to replicate the partial success of their campaign cooperation in the Upper House election last month by taking advantage of the split in conservative votes between Koike and Masuda, ended in third place with just 1.34 million votes.