Shiga Gov. Taizo Mikazuki defeats Manabu Kondo to win second four-year term

OTSU, SHIGA PREF. – Shiga Gov. Taizo Mikazuki cruised to re-election Sunday with widespread support from both the ruling and opposition camps, defeating former Shiga University Vice President Manabu Kondo.

“Over the next four years, the real value of the governor will be tested. I’d like to do my best to make progress in policies affecting Shiga residents,” Mikazuki, 47, said after winning the two-man race.

Mikazuki defeated Kondo by a vote of 377,132 to 77,213.

Mikazuki, formerly a senior vice transport minister in 2010 under the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan, became governor in 2014. He was supported by members of the opposition Democratic Party for the People and local chapters of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, its junior coalition partner.

Kondo, 68, was backed by the Japanese Communist Party. He campaigned by criticizing Abe for his cronyism scandals and his push to revise the pacifist Constitution, but failed to secure broad support.

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