New York Times
Tokyo Elects Yuriko Koike as Its First Female Governor
By JONATHAN SOBLEJULY 31, 2016
TOKYO ? Yuriko Koike, a conservative former defense minister of Japan, became the first woman elected governor of Tokyo on Sunday, handily winning a vote to replace the city’s previous chief executive after he fell to a financial scandal.
東京ー日曜日、小池百合子、日本の保守的前防衛大臣が、東京の初代女性選出知事になった。彼が、金銭のスキャンダルに屈した後、都の行政長官を交代する選挙を殆ど勝ち目のないにも拘らず。
Ms. Koike’s biography is unusual for a Japanese politician, even apart from her gender. A divorced former newscaster, she attended a university in Egypt and speaks fluent Arabic.
小池夫人の来歴は、日本の政治家には珍しく彼女の性別から懸け離れてさえいる。離婚した嘗てのニュースキャスターである彼女は、エジプトの大学に通い、流暢なアラビア語を話す。
22:35 2016/08/01月
She won what was essentially a three-way race, defeating her closest opponent, Hiroya Masuda, another former cabinet minister, by more than a million votes, according to preliminary tallies by the Japanese news media. Mr. Masuda was the official candidate of the national governing party, the Liberal Democrats.
本質的に三本道のレイスだった事に勝った。彼女の最も近しい敵を破って。増田寛也、もう一人の前閣僚は、日本のニュス メディアの予備の得票によれば、１００万票を上回る近辺で、増田氏は、国内与党公認候補だった。
Ms. Koike, 64, is also a Liberal Democrat, but she broke with the party to seek the governor’s post. The role roughly combines the duties of an American mayor and a state governor.
小池夫人、６４歳も又、自由民主党でありながら、彼女は、知事のポスト欲しさに政党と絶交した。その行動様式は、乱暴で、アメリカの市長や国家元首の本分を兼ね備える。
16:58 2016/08/02火
“I want to regain the trust of the people of Tokyo,” Ms. Koike said after initial projections were broadcast on Sunday night, alluding to the scandal that prompted her predecessor to resign in June.
「私は、東京都民の信頼を取り戻そうと考えている。」小池夫人は、6月に彼女の前任者を駆り立てたスキャンダルを仄めかしながら、最初の予測が、日曜夜に放送された後、語った。
22:45 2016/08/03水
Ms. Koike was the most right-leaning of the three leading candidates. As a member of Parliament, where she served from 1992 until she resigned her seat in mid-July, she supported conservative causes like removing antiwar provisions from Japan’s Constitution, although her move to city politics will put that issue and others outside her official purview.
小池夫人は、三人の首位に立つ候補者の内、最も右寄りだった。国会議員として、彼女が、7月半ば、彼女の議席を辞するまで、1992年から彼女が仕えた場所で、反戦の備えを片付けでもするかのように、保守主義を支える。日本の憲法から彼女の都政への方策は、その問題や、その他の外面は彼女の公認の限界を示すだろう。
22:49 2016/08/04木
Women had been elected to governorships in Japan before, but never in Tokyo, the nation’s capital and largest city.
In addition to governing a municipality of 13.6 million residents ? the core of the world’s most populous urban area, with at least 20 million more people in its separately administered suburbs ? Ms. Koike will be responsible for preparing Tokyo for the Summer Olympic Games in 2020. One of her first duties will be to travel to Rio de Janeiro, the site of this year’s Games, to represent Tokyo as the event’s next host.
Ms. Koike’s immediate predecessor, Yoichi Masuzoe, battled with national Olympic officials over the Tokyo Games’ rapidly escalating budget. He left office after he acknowledged using political funds to pay for personal travel and entertainment, setting off a public furor.
“I voted for Koike because I have hopes for the first female governor,” said Akiko Kashiwabara, a 39-year-old woman who voted in Chofu, a residential area in the west of the city. “I want her to keep the Olympic budget from growing, to reduce the burden on Tokyo residents.”
Today’s Headlines: Asia Edition
Get news and analysis from Asia and around the world delivered to your inbox every day in the Asian morning.
Ms. Koike won the election despite splitting the conservative vote with Mr. Masuda, a former internal affairs minister and governor of Iwate Prefecture l, in northeastern Japan.
Mr. Masuda lacked Ms. Koike’s name recognition in the capital, while the other leading candidate, Shuntaro Torigoe, a journalist, was well known but handicapped by his age, 76, and lack of political experience.
“Masuda looks like every other Liberal Democratic Party politician, but Koike has the image of a reformer,” said Katsunori Sasamoto, 30, who works at a maritime logistics company and also voted in Chofu. “Torigoe will be 80 by the time the Olympics come, and I worry he wouldn’t be up to the job.”
Perhaps Ms. Koike’s most critical task will be to stay out of financial trouble. The man who held the governor’s post before Mr. Masuzoe, Naoki Inose, also resigned over a financial scandal, in his case involving campaign funding, and Ms. Koike will be Tokyo’s third governor in less than three years.
Ms. Koike entered politics in 1992 after a career as a television news anchor. She served as defense minister under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during Mr. Abe’s first, short-lived term in office in 2007, when Japan was supporting the United States-led military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. She also ran unsuccessfully for the national Liberal Democratic Party leadership.
As a young woman in the 1970s, Ms. Koike left a university in Japan to study in Egypt, first learning Arabic at the American University in Cairo, then earning a degree in sociology from Cairo University. She married a fellow Japanese student whom she had met in Egypt, but they divorced soon after.
Follow Jonathan Soble on Twitter @jonathan_soble.
Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.