Candidates kick off their campaigns in battle to become new Tokyo governor

Official campaigning began on Thursday for the July 31 gubernatorial election, pitting two former ministers with links to the metropolitan assembly’s ruling party against a veteran journalist backed by a united opposition front.

The major candidates are former defence minister Yuriko Koike, 63, former internal affairs minister Hiroya Masuda, 64, and Shuntaro Torigoe, 76.

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The winner of the election, assuming he or she sees out the full four-year term, will be tasked with ensuring the success of the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics to be held in the capital.

The election comes after Yoichi Masuzoe stepped down as governor in May over a political funds scandal. Another money fiasco brought down his predecessor Naoki Inose in 2014.

Koike is running without the backing of the Liberal Democratic Party. She initially appealed to the LDP’s Tokyo chapter for support, but it threw its weight behind Masuda.

Despite Masuda gaining the endorsement of the LDP, Komeito and the Party for the Japanese Kokoro, his lack of recognition compared to Koike may threaten his chance of wooing swing voters.

Journalist Torigoe has the joint backing of opposition parties including the Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party.

The opposition parties backed united candidates in single-seat districts in Sunday’s election for the upper house of the national Diet, an approach that won them 11 of the 32 districts.

Torigoe has said he decided to run for Tokyo governor the day after that election out of frustration that

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition and like-minded forces had secured the two-thirds majority required to begin the process of amending Japan’s pacifist Constitution.

Before officially declaring their candidacies, the hopefuls had outlined relatively similar policy ideas on how to look after Tokyo’s oldest and youngest residents, the budget for the 2020 Games and preparing the capital for the possibility of a destructive earthquake.

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Several other people have also expressed their intention to run.

On Wednesday, Kenji Utsunomiya, the former president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, decided not to run after Torigoe received the backing of the opposition parties, some of which had endorsed Utsunomiya in the past.