{"id":16893,"date":"2021-04-15T16:51:46","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T16:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=16893"},"modified":"2026-04-23T20:20:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:20:34","slug":"yokohama-anti-ir-mayoral-candidate-launches-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/yokohama-anti-ir-mayoral-candidate-launches-campaign","title":{"rendered":"Yokohama anti-IR mayoral candidate launches campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Akiko Fujimura has confirmed she will run for mayor in Yokohama City. The elections are scheduled for August 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Japan.-&nbsp;<strong>Akiko Fujimura<\/strong>, the representative director of an animal welfare group, has confirmed that&nbsp;<strong>she will run for mayor in Yokohama City.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Akiko Fujimura<\/strong>\u00a0(47) is the representative director of the\u00a0<strong>Japan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals<\/strong>. She <strong>will run for mayor <\/strong>as an independent candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Previously <strong>a supporter of current mayor Fumiko Hayashi<\/strong> in the 2017 elections, Fujimura began to show interest in running herself after <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/yokohama-new-group-to-support-anti-ir-mayoral-candidate\">Hayashi issued a pro-IR promotional material.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to local media, Fujimura has declared <strong>three main policies<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The&nbsp;creation of an \u201cAnimal Police\u201d force&nbsp;that would crack down on animal cruelty.<\/li><li>The immediate cancellation of the city\u2019s IR project.<\/li><li>The upgrade of the city\u2019s disaster prevention and management infrastructure.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In February,<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/yokohama-to-set-aside-us3-4m-for-casino\">Yokohama City set aside JPY360m (US$3.4m) of its draft budget<\/a>&nbsp;for the 2021 financial year&nbsp;for the city\u2019s planned integrated resort<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/who-is-yokohamas-anti-casino-mayoral-candidate\">Masataka Ota is another anti-IR mayoral candidate<\/a>. A member of the Constitutional Democratic Party, he has expressed his<strong>\u00a0stance against Yokohama participating in a bid for an integrated resort licence<\/strong>\u00a0many times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hayashi<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/hayashi-may-not-seek-reelection-yokohama-ir-in-danger\"> has not yet clarified if she will run for reelection<\/a>. It has been speculated that she may decide <strong>not to run because of health reasons<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Akiko Fujimura has confirmed she will run for mayor in Yokohama City. The elections are scheduled for August 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":16894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Akiko Fujimura has announced her candidacy for mayor of Yokohama City, with a core policy plank being the immediate cancellation of the city's Integrated Resort (IR) project. This development introduces significant political uncertainty for the planned IR, impacting potential operators and investors. The election is scheduled for August 22.","focusai_entities":"Akiko Fujimura, Fumiko Hayashi, Masataka Ota, Japan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Constitutional Democratic Party","focusai_location":"Yokohama City, Japan","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.8), operator_casino (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.9), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IR Project Viability","query":"What is the projected impact on the Yokohama IR project's timeline, capital expenditure, and projected GGR if an anti-IR candidate secures the mayoral position?"},{"label":"Operator Market Strategy","query":"How might major international casino operators re-evaluate their Japan market entry strategies and resource allocation in light of heightened political risk in Yokohama?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,154],"tags":[23632],"class_list":["post-16893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legislation-news","tag-integrated-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16893"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16917,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16893\/revisions\/16917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}