The stage is set for the Nara Prefectural Gubernatorial Election…! The Empress of Nara, Sanae Takaichi vs. LDP Headquarters: Under-the-Sea Dark Struggle over Candidates

The Nara prefectural gubernatorial election saw incumbent Governor Shogo Arai (78), who is seeking a fifth term in office, and former General Affairs Bureau official Ministry Hiraki (48) announce their candidacies. In this election, which is expected to split the conservative movement, a number of big-name politicians have intervened in the race, and even now, less than two months before the election, the two sides are still battling over the LDP nomination.

Governor Arai was originally a member of the LDP’s House of Councilors, but ran for governor of Nara Prefecture in 2007 and won. He has served four terms to date, and during the COVID-19 crisis, Nara Prefecture took its own emergency response measures, claiming that ‘declaring a state of emergency is ineffective. Hiraki, on the other hand, served as secretary to Minister of Economic Security Sanae Takaichi, 61, who is president of the Nara Prefectural Federation of Trade Unions, when she was Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications.

In the gubernatorial election to be held on April 9, 2011, it was a given that Governor Arai would be nominated. However, when Mr. Takaichi became the new chairman of the LDP Nara Prefectural Federation in September 2010, the selection of a candidate for governor went back to the drawing board under the guise of “a candidate who can beat the Restoration Party.

The Nara Prefectural Federation, led by Mr. Takaichi, decided to support Mr. Hiraki based on the results of an independent opinion poll. But in fact, the LDP headquarters has become embroiled in an uproar over this decision,” said an LDP official.

According to LDP regulations, new candidates for governor must be endorsed by the party headquarters, and even if they receive the endorsement of the prefectural federation, the final decision rests with the party headquarters. At present, the party headquarters has not yet endorsed Mr. Hiraki.

The problem lies in what Mr. Koichi reported to the party headquarters. The party headquarters is not aware of the results of the poll that the prefectural federation says it conducted, and it also doubts the credibility of the poll. Furthermore, there are reports that within the prefectural federations there are overwhelmingly 25 to 2 in favor of Mr. Hiraki, but the prefectural federation’s election committee has not even voted on the issue. Within the party’s headquarters, the rating of the incumbent governor Arai and Hiraki is 50-50. It seems that Yutaka Moriyama, head of the election task force committee, is also aware of the series of reports and is unable to make a decision on his endorsement.

Why is Mr. Takaichi pushing Mr. Hiraki even to the point of causing a conservative split? The key lies in the relationship between Mr. Takaichi and Governor Arai. Another LDP official said, “The biggest reason is the relationship between Mr. Takaichi and Governor Arai.

The biggest issue is the one involving a large-scale, wide-area disaster prevention center in Gojo City, Nara Prefecture. Mr. Arai had made numerous requests to Mr. Takaichi, who was then Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, in order to have it included in the national system. Mr. Takaichi kept refusing, saying it was impossible, but when the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications was later replaced by Councilor Ryota Takeda, the project quickly moved forward. Mr. Takaichi bent over backwards, feeling that his face had been ruined by this one incident. Furthermore, when Mr. Arai expressed his disapproval of a large-scale project to build a waste treatment plant in the prefecture, the rift between the two became definite.

Currently, Mr. Takaichi, the House of Councilors Secretary-General Hiroshige Seko, supports Mr. Hiraki’s candidacy, and Governor Arai is backed by such heavyweights as former Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai and Shizuka Kamei, who served as Minister of State for Financial Affairs. If they cannot unify their candidates, the situation is so grave that it will no longer be a conservative split.

According to a poll conducted by the LDP headquarters in early February, The Japan Innovation Party’s Makoto Yamashita, 54, has the upper hand.

If the election campaign goes ahead as is, the votes will be split, and the Restoration Association will gain a fishing advantage. What will be the outcome of the election for governor of Nara Prefecture, where the agendas of big-name politicians are intricately intertwined?