Toru Hashimoto's huge victory in the Osaka mayoral election was undoubtedly a political earthquake. The question now is how sweeping and powerful will be the tsunami that follows. My worry is that Tokyo, and particularly the political and bureaucratic establishment, does not comprehend the tectonic forces working underground.
The election was the start, not the end, of the action. Hashimoto challenged, and defeated the combined forces of Japan's political establishment. He has now issued another challenge: He wants to be the prime mover and maker of a new political and economic center of power based in Osaka. This could prove, depending on how the old pols and bureaucrats react, either the opportunity to create a twin engine with Tokyo in reforming and reviving Japan, or spark a dangerous squabble between the two biggest regions of Japan that could weaken Tokyo's ascendancy and the whole country.
Hashimoto, a boyish-looking 42-year-old lawyer, father of seven children and self-confessed son of a gangster, has demonstrated that he is a talented, telegenic populist politician with an ability to say something exciting to each generation. His flashes of abrasive and autocratic temperament also suggest someone tempted to take matters into his own hands if he cannot get his own way. Equally dangerously, Japan's political establishment is lost in a daze in a maze without a clue how to find its way out, let alone to deal with Hashimoto's challenge.