Serious observers of Okinawan affairs — not the radical and often violent anti-base activists or their sympathizers in the media and academia — have a number of reasons why they do not want to see Denny Tamaki, the current governor of Okinawa Prefecture, to be given another four years in Sunday’s gubernatorial election.
In the past eight years, Tamaki’s administration has shown chronic opacity and weak oversight, most seriously in a scandal involving the prefecture’s Washington office over improper corporate visa and accounting arrangements. The left-leaning governor spent years and substantial public resources traveling to China and other countries without an accounting of how the money was spent.
However, my biggest concern involves Japan and the region’s security, centered around the strategically vital 3,000-meter runway at Shimojishima Airport in the Miyako Islands group. The Okinawa Prefectural Government, under Tamaki’s eight years as governor and the four years of his leftist predecessor, the late Takeshi Onaga, has done virtually nothing to repair or maintain this critical asset.
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