Following Sunday's victory in the Nago mayoral election by incumbent Susumu Inamine, a staunch opponent of building a new U.S. Marine Corps base in the city's Henoko district, a defiant central government and unrepentant Okinawa governor insisted the contentious facility would be built as scheduled.
But behind such confident rhetoric, the administrative and political barriers to completing construction of the base remain as formidable as ever. Inamine has vowed to fully exercise his authority to block municipal permits needed to finish building the partially offshore base. Newly emboldened anti-base activists have vowed to physically confront any attempts to carry out offshore construction.
Inamine won with 19,839 votes to rival candidate Bunshin Suematsu's 15,684 votes. The turnout rate among the city's nearly 46,600 eligible voters was 76.71 percent, virtually the same as four years ago.