Incumbent Takehisa Matsubara and challenger Saichi Kurematsu filed Sunday to run for the April 24 mayoral election for Nagoya, the nation's fourth-largest metropolis.
Matsubara, 68, is backed by the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of Japan and New Komeito, while Kurematsu, 49, the head of a labor union federation in the prefecture, is endorsed by the Japanese Communist Party.