Emiko Okuyama

Mayor Okuyama in August 2010.

Emiko Okuyama ( Japanese 奥 山 恵 美 子 , Okuyama Emiko ; born June 23, 1951 in Akita , Akita Prefecture ) is a Japanese politician and was mayor of Sendai from 2009 to 2017 .

Okuyama, a graduate of Tōhoku University's Faculty of Economics , worked in Sendai City Council after graduating in 1975. In 2005 she became a school councilor ( kyōiku-chō ) in the city's education committee, and in 2007 she became vice mayor ( fuku-shichō ). In 2009 she left the city administration to apply to succeed Katsuhiko Umehara , who was not running for a second term.

Okuyama won the mayoral election on July 26, 2009 with the support of the Democratic and Social Democratic Party and numerous members of the city council with 161,546 votes (45.1%) against five other candidates who all received less than 20 percent of the votes. She took office in August 2009, making her the first woman mayor of a seirei shitei toshi , a “government-designated city”, or a prefecture capital nationwide .

In 2011 Sendai was badly hit by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and dealing with the aftermath largely determined the remainder of her tenure. In 2013 she was confirmed in office with a two-thirds majority against the communist challenger Tatsuya Kadono, and voter turnout reached a record low. In 2017 she no longer competed.

Web links

• Your organization's website 仙台 み ど り と 風 の 会 Sendai midori to kaze no kai (Japanese), archived version from her tenure as mayor in the Internet archive of January 19, 2017
• Biography of the mayor of Sendai City. Archived from the original on April 12, 2013 ; Retrieved October 27, 2019 (Japanese). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Okuyama heads to win in Sendai. In: The Japan Times . July 27, 2009, accessed March 12, 2011 . 
2. ↑ 仙台 市長 選 挙 の 結果 (Sendai-shichō sichyo no kekka (Mayor election results Sendai)). 仙台 市 Sendaishi , German , City of Sendai , August 2, 2017, accessed on April 8, 2019 (Japanese).