NAHA - Genta Koja, a former deputy mayor of Naha who accepts the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Henoko in Nago, won the Okinawa gubernatorial election on September 13, defeating incumbent Governor Denny Tamaki and bringing an end to 12 years of prefectural administrations committed to blocking the project.
Koja, 42, was making his first bid for governor and was backed by the Liberal Democratic Party, Nippon Ishin no Kai, the Democratic Party for the People, Sanseito and the Conservative Party, with the Okinawa chapter of Komeito also supporting his candidacy.
Tamaki, 66, was seeking another term with the backing of the "All Okinawa" coalition, which has made opposition to the Henoko relocation plan one of the defining issues of Okinawan politics for more than a decade.
Koja's victory represents the most significant political shift in the prefecture since Takeshi Onaga won the governorship in 2014 on a platform of preventing construction of the replacement facility at Henoko.
Onaga, a former Naha mayor with conservative political roots, brought together opposition parties, civic groups, labor organizations and parts of Okinawa's business community under the All Okinawa banner. The coalition sought to transcend the traditional conservative-progressive divide by focusing on opposition to concentrating the burden of U.S. military bases in Okinawa and, in particular, the Henoko project.
After Onaga died in office in 2018, Tamaki, then a member of the House of Representatives, ran as his successor and defeated the government-backed candidate by more than 80,000 votes. Tamaki won 396,632 votes, then the highest total ever recorded in an Okinawa gubernatorial election.
He was re-elected in September 2022, again defeating a candidate backed by the ruling parties and reinforcing the prefectural government's opposition to Henoko.
The dispute dates back much further.
Japan and the United States agreed in 1996 to return the Futenma air station, which is located in the densely populated city of Ginowan, following years of concern over accidents, aircraft noise and the risks posed by a major military installation surrounded by residential neighborhoods and schools.
The Japanese government eventually settled on constructing a replacement facility in the Henoko area of Nago, incorporating runways extending into the coastal waters off Camp Schwab.
Successive governments in Tokyo have argued that moving Futenma to Henoko is the only practical way to achieve the air station's return while maintaining the deterrence provided by the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa.
Opponents argue that the plan merely moves the burden from one part of Okinawa to another and effectively creates a new military facility that could remain in use for decades.
Resistance to Henoko became one of the most powerful organizing forces in Okinawan politics. In a February 2019 prefectural referendum, more than 70% of voters who participated opposed landfill work associated with the project.
The result, however, did not stop construction.
Years of confrontation followed between the prefectural government and the central government over landfill approval, design changes and work needed to stabilize soft ground discovered beneath parts of Oura Bay.
Tokyo ultimately used legal and administrative procedures to push the project forward despite Okinawa's objections. Construction on the Oura Bay side moved ahead from January 2024, followed by ground-improvement work later that year.
Further landfill work began in another section of Oura Bay in June 2026, and Japan and the United States reached agreement in July on the remaining landfill and ground-improvement work required for the project, allowing all stages of construction to proceed.
That changing reality formed an important backdrop to the September election.
Koja did not argue that Henoko was necessarily the ideal solution. During the campaign, he said he did not regard the site as the only conceivable answer to the Futenma problem but accepted the relocation because construction had advanced and attempts to halt it through litigation had largely failed.
Starting a search for an entirely different site at this stage, he argued, would further delay the return of Futenma.
Koja said he would instead press the central government to clarify when Futenma would be returned and seek measures to reduce the burden on surrounding communities while the relocation remains incomplete, including transferring military training elsewhere.
That position marks a fundamental change from the approach taken by the Onaga and Tamaki administrations.
For 12 years, Okinawa's governor served as the most prominent institutional opponent of the Henoko project, challenging Tokyo through administrative decisions, lawsuits and public campaigning.
Koja's election removes that resistance from the governor's office.
The central government is therefore likely to find it easier to coordinate with the prefecture as construction proceeds, although the election does not eliminate opposition among residents, civic groups or political parties.
Nor does it mean that disputes over the U.S. military presence in Okinawa have disappeared. The prefecture hosts a disproportionately large share of U.S. military facilities in Japan, and questions involving aircraft noise, accidents, crimes involving military personnel, training, land returns and the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement remain major political issues.
The election also cannot simply be read as a referendum approving Henoko.
Economic concerns played a central role in the campaign and appear to have weakened the traditional dominance of the base issue.
Pre-election polling showed that measures to address rising prices were the most important policy concern for many voters, with bases and security ranking behind economic issues. Exit polling also indicated that about three in 10 people who had voted for Tamaki in the previous gubernatorial election switched to Koja this time.
Koja deliberately placed the economy at the center of his campaign, portraying the Tamaki administration as one of stagnation and arguing that Okinawa had failed to close its income gap with the rest of Japan.
His most eye-catching economic pledge was to double prefectural income within 10 years.
Koja proposed what he called a new "5K economy," centered on tourism, health, the environment, marine industries and entrepreneurship, while also calling for higher productivity and greater added value among small and midsize businesses.
He has also set a goal of attracting 15 million tourists while increasing spending per visitor rather than relying solely on growth in visitor numbers. On transport, he has proposed measures ranging from improving roads and bus services to examining longer-term rail links running north-south through Okinawa.
The result also represents a major setback for All Okinawa.
The coalition transformed Okinawan politics after 2014 and for years dominated prefecture-wide elections. But the alliance had gradually weakened as conservative business figures and other early supporters left, while government-backed candidates increasingly won municipal elections.
The September 13 defeat raises questions over whether opposition to Henoko alone can still provide the broad political coalition that sustained the movement for more than a decade.
Tamaki acknowledged the result on election night, thanking supporters and saying he would take the outcome seriously. He also expressed concern about the positions of some of the parties supporting Koja on issues including constitutional revision and strengthening Japan's deterrence capabilities.
For Koja, the immediate challenge will be balancing his diverse political support with Okinawan public opinion.
His victory gives the central government a governor willing to accept the Henoko project, but deep skepticism toward the U.S. military footprint remains embedded in Okinawan politics. Even voters who supported Koja for economic reasons do not necessarily support every aspect of Tokyo's security policy or the construction project.
The physical relocation itself also remains years away.
The Defense Ministry continues to describe Henoko as the only solution to eliminating the dangers posed by Futenma and says construction is advancing, but no definite date has yet been announced for the air station's return. The government has said the timing will depend on completion of the replacement facility, movement of military units and fulfillment of other conditions agreed with the United States.
The September election therefore changes the politics of Henoko more immediately than it changes conditions on the ground.
For Tokyo, Koja's victory removes one of the most persistent sources of political and administrative resistance to a project successive governments have pursued for decades.
For Okinawa, it marks the end of an era in which the governor's office was closely identified with the campaign to stop Henoko.
And for All Okinawa, the result poses a deeper question: whether the movement that reshaped the prefecture's politics in 2014 can rebuild a broad coalition when voters are increasingly weighing wages, prices, tourism, transport and economic opportunity alongside the long-running dispute over U.S. bases.
Source: Kyodo
