Yokohama Mayor Hayashi wins third term in relief for LDP
Jiji -- Jul 31
Yokohama Mayor Fumiko Hayashi won a third four-year term in Sunday's election, a result that reassured Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which fared poorly in two successive major local elections held recently.

Hayashi, who ran in the mayoral election as an independent, was backed by the LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito. The LDP suffered a historic defeat in the July 2 Tokyo metropolitan assembly election, while a candidate supported by the LDP and Komeito lost to an opposition-backed rival in the July 23 mayoral election in Sendai, the capital of the northeastern prefecture of Miyagi.

In the election in Yokohama, the capital of Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, Hayashi, 71, defeated her two competitors, both independents as well. They were Kazuyoshi Nagashima, 50, a former lawmaker of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, and Hirotaka Ito, 39, a former member of the Yokohama municipal assembly.

News source: Jiji