AMAGASAKI — While the Japanese public's attention is intensely fixed on which party takes the lower house in the upcoming election, the race had seemed more like a done deal to voters in an industrial city in western Japan.
The Hyogo city of Amagasaki, halfway between Osaka and Kobe, where some 460,000 people live, has continuously fielded a single candidate, Tetsuzo Fuyushiba, to the House of Representatives in the past seven elections. This has allowed the New Komeito party heavyweight to serve 23 years at the center of Japan's political arena.
That was before Yasuo Tanaka came along. The House of Councillors member who heads the minor opposition New Party Nippon announced his candidacy in the same Hyogo No. 8 district in late July with the full backing of the increasingly popular major opposition Democratic Party of Japan, instantly changing the political landscape in the static electoral district.