Former trade ministry bureaucrat Kazuhiko Oigawa, backed by the ruling coalition, was almost certain to win Sunday's Ibaraki Prefecture gubernatorial election. Projections late in the day showed that Oigawa was on course to beat six-term incumbent Masaru Hashimoto, according to projections.
The projected win by the 53-year-old newcomer may give a boost to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party as they seek to recover from scandals which at one point caused public support for the government to plummet. The election was the first major local poll since Abe revamped the Cabinet and the LDP leadership on Aug. 3.
The LDP put a great deal of effort into winning the election in the prefecture, seeing it as a prelude to three Lower House by-elections scheduled for October. In July, the LDP faced a humiliating setback in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government elections and a defeat in the Sendai mayoral election.