Suginami’s new Mayor
This year Satoko Kishimoto was elected Mayor of Suginami Ward.
What is your first impression of her?
She defeated the incumbent mayor, Ryo Tanaka, by 187 votes.
She is the first woman to become Mayor of Suginami.
Her main policies were:
protect the environment
better public services
free healthy school meals
less privatization
more citizen participation (the incumbent preferred a top-down style of politics)
The surprising point, which made global headlines, is she lives in Belgium. She is the poster-child for “working from home”
She lived in Japan for 25 years before moving overseas in 2001.
She always closely followed Japanese politics and took part when debates and campaigns moved online due to the pandemic.
She campaigned in Japan for a few weeks before the election.
Would you vote for a Mayor who wasn’t living in the country?
Her husband said:
“What we did not expect has happened—she has been elected,”
“We need to think about [the practicalities] again… Our youngest son is still in secondary education and has a few more years to go there, so moving to Japan is not going to be that easy.”
Do you think she should move to Suginami?
Did you vote in your local elections?
How can local politics increase the number of voters?
What would you like to change in your local area?
Sources:
https://www.kishimotosatoko.net/english
https://fortune.com/2022/06/22/extreme-wfh-japanese-woman-wins-tokyo-mayoralty-despite-living-almost-6000-miles-away-in-belgium/