{"id":9624,"date":"2020-09-03T08:43:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T08:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=9624"},"modified":"2026-04-24T02:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:10:21","slug":"yokohama-group-demands-referendum-over-ir-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/yokohama-group-demands-referendum-over-ir-plans","title":{"rendered":"Yokohama group demands referendum over IR plans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Two citizen groups are collecting signatures against a planned IR in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Japan.- Two citizen groups in Yokohama are collecting signatures against the city&#8217;s IR plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the groups is collecting signatures to demand a referendum on the proposed casino development, while the other is calling for the resignation of the city&#8217;s mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first groups is led by constitutional scholar Setsu Kobayashi. It is collecting signatures to deliver to the Yokohama City Council when it reconvenes in January 2021 with the aim of triggering a public referendum in around May 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kobayashi said in a press conference that due to pandemic the number of signatures has been lower than it would be, but that the intention of the campaign is to increase political pressure on the city government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The result of any referendum would not be legally binding. As a result, the other anti-casino citizen group has said Kobayashi\u2019s campaign is meaningless. It is aiming instead to remove Mayor Fumiko Hayashi from office as the only way to stop IR developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Japan&#8217;s national policy on <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/yokohama-ir-policy-delayed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">integrated resorts has been postponed<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, while it is expected that <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/shinzo-abes-exit-could-impact-gaming-sector\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the exit of the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe<\/a><\/em><\/strong> could also delay matters further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two citizen groups are collecting signatures against a planned IR in the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Two citizen groups in Yokohama, Japan, are actively campaigning against the city's proposed Integrated Resort (IR) development. One group seeks a public referendum, while the other aims for the resignation of Mayor Fumiko Hayashi, citing the non-binding nature of a referendum. These local efforts coincide with national delays in Japan's IR policy and potential further postponements due to political transitions.","focusai_entities":"Setsu Kobayashi, Fumiko Hayashi, Shinzo Abe, Yokohama City Council","focusai_location":"Japan, Yokohama","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.85), compliance_legal (0.8), operator_casino (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IR Project Timeline","query":"How do the ongoing citizen campaigns and national political transitions specifically impact the revised timeline for the Yokohama IR licensing process and potential GGR projections?"},{"label":"Referendum Impact","query":"Given the non-binding nature of the proposed referendum, what are the strategic implications for the Yokohama City Council's decision-making process regarding the IR development, and how might this influence B2C licensing applications?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,28,161,16338,167,158],"tags":[473,470,225,909],"class_list":["post-9624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-casino-news","category-daily-news","category-east-asia-news","category-news-region","category-slider-home","tag-ir","tag-japan","tag-legislation","tag-yokohama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9624","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9624"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9636,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9624\/revisions\/9636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}