When the candidate backed by Osaka Mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) co-leader Toru Hashimoto was defeated in September by Sakai Mayor Osami Takeyama, a staunch Hashimoto foe, it marked what is widely seen as the beginning of the end of the whole Hashimoto-Nippon Ishin movement, the final defeat of not only a man, but the ideas that propelled him to power.
Takeyama's re-election in the prefecture's second-largest city may make it politically impossible for Hashimoto to achieve the administrative integration of the city and prefecture of Osaka, his main goal.
The Sakai mayor has long opposed Hashimoto's plan to change Sakai into an ill-defined special district that would, according to Hashimoto, enjoy more autonomy over local taxes. According to Takeyama, it would destroy Sakai's identity as a separate political entity that is culturally distinct from Osaka.