OSAKA -- The Osaka Prefectural Assembly adopted a resolution early Friday urging the central government to grant long-term foreign residents in the country the right to run and vote in local elections.
"Currently, 210,000 foreign residents from 144 countries live as members of the local communities in the prefecture. It is natural and welcome that such people participate in community-making and contribute to the communities," says the resolution, which was adopted at the end of a marathon assembly session that dragged on past midnight Thursday.
Osaka Prefecture is one of the few local administrative bodies with a substantial foreign population that had not adopted such a resolution.