A July 10, 2020 account of the opposition’s search for a candidate in the Tokyo gubernatorial election, including the reported plan to run Renho, her proposed conditions involving former education ministry official Kihei Maekawa, Taro Yamamoto and Kenji Utsunomiya, and the failed effort to create a unified opposition campaign.

July 10, 2020
The Abandoned Plan to Run Renho for Governor of Tokyo: The Kihei Maekawa Deputy-Governor Proposal, Cooperation with the Communist Party, and the Opposition’s Search for a Candidate
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
This text is taken from an article by journalist Takayuki Hikawa published in the monthly magazine WiLL under the title “How Many Tongues Does His Excellency Azumi Have?”
When the ordinary session of the National Diet ended on June 17, 2020, political attention in Nagatacho shifted to the Tokyo gubernatorial election scheduled for July 5.
The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan sought either to field its own candidate or to establish a unified opposition candidate against Governor Yuriko Koike, who was seeking reelection.
According to Hikawa, this effort reflected not only disagreements over Tokyo policy but also intense resentment arising from the political realignment surrounding the Party of Hope before the 2017 House of Representatives election.
At that time, Koike indicated that candidates seeking to join the Party of Hope would be screened.
Her use of the word “exclusion” became a central event leading Yukio Edano to establish the Constitutional Democratic Party.
The 2020 Tokyo gubernatorial election was therefore more than an election for the administrative leader of the Japanese capital.
For the Constitutional Democratic Party, it was also an opportunity to remove Koike from office and demonstrate the strength of opposition cooperation centered on the party and the Japanese Communist Party.
The person initially regarded as the strongest possible challenger was Renho, then a deputy leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party.
Renho had previously received more than one million votes in the Tokyo district of the House of Councillors election.
Given her public recognition and electoral record, it was understandable that she was viewed as one of the few candidates capable of competing with Koike.
According to Hikawa’s article, Renho temporarily decided to run for governor and presented two conditions for accepting the candidacy.
The first was that Kihei Maekawa, a former administrative vice-minister of education, agree to serve as deputy governor.
The second was that Taro Yamamoto, leader of Reiwa Shinsengumi, and Kenji Utsunomiya, a former president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, support her candidacy.
If this account was accurate, Renho was not planning to rely on her name recognition alone.
She was attempting to unite supporters of the Constitutional Democratic Party, the Communist Party, Reiwa Shinsengumi, and Utsunomiya into a broad progressive electoral coalition capable of challenging Koike.
However, Governor Koike’s media exposure increased sharply after a state of emergency was declared in Tokyo and throughout Japan in response to COVID-19.
Her public support also rose.
An electoral survey reportedly conducted by the Constitutional Democratic Party found that even Renho would be unable to defeat Koike.
If Renho, a nationally recognized party executive, were defeated, the political damage to the party would be enormous.
The proposal to run Renho was therefore abandoned.
Akira Nagatsuma, who chaired the party’s election strategy committee and its Tokyo organization, subsequently explored the possibility of running Maekawa or Tokyo Shimbun reporter Isoko Mochizuki.
Neither proposal succeeded.
After effectively abandoning the effort to recruit a candidate from within or around the party, Nagatsuma presented Edano and Secretary-General Tetsuro Fukuyama with two alternatives: support Utsunomiya or support Yamamoto.
According to Hikawa, Edano and Fukuyama chose to pursue Yamamoto as a unified opposition candidate.
Although Utsunomiya was a former president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and had been described as “Japan’s Bernie Sanders,” they reportedly regarded him as too strongly identified with the political left.
Nagatsuma then began efforts to persuade Yamamoto to run as the unified opposition candidate.
Hikawa identified political activist Masashi Saito as an intermediary with Yamamoto’s camp.
Ichiro Ozawa of the Democratic Party for the People also reportedly attempted to persuade Yamamoto.
However, Yamamoto’s side reportedly stated that he would consider running if he were the official Reiwa Shinsengumi candidate.
It also suggested that he might run as an independent if the participating parties agreed to reduce the consumption tax rate to five percent.
A Reiwa-endorsed candidacy would not easily qualify as a unified opposition candidacy.
The Constitutional Democratic Party, on the other hand, was unwilling to accept a reduction of the consumption tax rate to five percent.
The negotiations therefore reached an impasse.
The following is the relevant section of Hikawa’s article.
The Abandoned “Renho for Governor” Plan
With the ordinary Diet session closed, the greatest interest in Nagatacho shifted to the Tokyo gubernatorial election to be held on July 5.
Yukio Edano of the Constitutional Democratic Party had harbored intense hostility toward Governor Yuriko Koike, who was seeking reelection.
He wanted to remove Koike, who had excluded him during the Party of Hope controversy surrounding the House of Representatives election three years earlier.
The Constitutional Democratic Party quickly decided to field a challenger to Koike, but its search then descended into repeated confusion.
The first person selected as a possible candidate was Renho, a deputy leader of the party.
The calculation was that Renho, who had received more than 1.1 million votes in the previous House of Councillors election in Tokyo, might be able to defeat Koike.
In April, Renho secretly met Akira Koike, the secretary-general of the Japanese Communist Party.
Koike reportedly bowed and said, “Renho can win. Please run.”
The Constitutional Democratic Party also hoped to strengthen its cooperative relationship with the Communist Party through the gubernatorial election in preparation for the next general election.
In that sense, Renho, who could also receive Communist support, was an ideal candidate.
Renho reportedly presented two conditions.
First, former education ministry administrative vice-minister Kihei Maekawa had to agree to serve as deputy governor.
Second, Reiwa Shinsengumi leader Taro Yamamoto and former Japan Federation of Bar Associations president Kenji Utsunomiya had to support her.
For a time, Renho had decided to challenge Koike.
However, the circumstances changed immediately afterward.
When a state of emergency was declared in Tokyo and throughout Japan, Koike’s media exposure increased sharply and her support rose.
An electoral survey conducted at that point reportedly showed that even Renho could not defeat Koike.
Defeat for Renho, a senior party figure, would have caused immeasurable damage.
The Renho candidacy therefore disappeared.
Nagatsuma subsequently explored running Maekawa or Tokyo Shimbun reporter Isoko Mochizuki, but neither effort succeeded.
With no remaining internal option, Nagatsuma presented Edano and Fukuyama with two choices on May 11.
“Should we support Kenji Utsunomiya, or should we support Taro Yamamoto?”
Edano and Fukuyama reportedly decided, “Let us go with Yamamoto.”
They regarded Utsunomiya, a former head of the national bar association who had been described as “Japan’s Bernie Sanders,” as too strongly left-wing.
Nagatsuma then began attempting to persuade Yamamoto to become the unified opposition candidate.
The intermediary on Yamamoto’s side was reportedly left-wing political activist Masashi Saito, who was also described as an ally of former Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
At the same time, Ichiro Ozawa began his own effort to persuade Yamamoto.
Yamamoto’s side, however, continued to set conditions, stating that it would consider running if Yamamoto were the officially endorsed Reiwa Shinsengumi candidate, or that he might run as an independent if all parties accepted a reduction of the consumption tax rate to five percent.
A Reiwa-endorsed candidacy would not constitute a unified opposition campaign.
The Constitutional Democratic Party, meanwhile, would not accept a consumption tax reduction.
The negotiations consequently reached an impasse.
This sequence suggests that the Constitutional Democratic Party was not primarily searching for the individual best qualified to govern Tokyo.
Its priorities appeared to be defeating Governor Koike and strengthening opposition cooperation ahead of the next House of Representatives election.
Renho, Maekawa, Mochizuki, Utsunomiya and Yamamoto held substantially different political positions and had very different professional backgrounds.
What united their consideration as possible candidates was whether they could participate in an anti-Koike and anti-Abe electoral coalition centered on the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Communist Party.
Electoral cooperation was placed ahead of policy.
Name recognition and the ability to mobilize votes were placed ahead of a vision for Tokyo.
The ability to unite party and organizational support was placed ahead of the candidate’s administrative qualifications.
It was natural that voters would recognize such a process for what it was.
The governorship of Tokyo is not an office to be used as an experiment in opposition cooperation.
It carries responsibility for the lives, livelihoods, economy, education and disaster preparedness of approximately fourteen million residents.
A search that began with the single objective of defeating Koike and moved from one potential candidate to another suggested that the Constitutional Democratic Party lacked a clear vision of how it wished to govern Tokyo.
If Hikawa’s report that Renho demanded Maekawa as deputy governor and the support of Yamamoto and Utsunomiya was accurate, it also indicated that the plan prioritized the consolidation of progressive votes over the substance of metropolitan policy.
To obtain the confidence of Tokyo residents, an opposition party must not begin by asking who can defeat Koike.
It must ask who can govern Tokyo more effectively.
An election organized primarily to defeat another politician is not an election organized for the people of Tokyo.
To be continued.