Takashi Kawamura

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Takashi Kawamura

Takashi Kawamura ( Japanese 河村 た か し , Kawamura Takashi ; born November 3, 1948 in Nagoya , Aichi Prefecture , Japan ) is a Japanese politician, mayor of Nagoya and former member of the Shūgiin , the lower house.

After completing his studies at Hitotsubashi University, Kawamura worked in his father's paper recycling company Kawamura Shōji . After a first unsuccessful candidacy as an independent in the Shūgiin election in 1990 , he received the second attempt in 1993 , now as a candidate for the New Japan Party , in the four-mandate constituency Aichi 1, the highest percentage of votes and moved into Shūgiin. During the reform of the Japanese party landscape in the 1990s, Kawamura belonged to the New Progress Party , the Liberal Party and finally, from 1998, the Democratic Party . After the electoral reform, he ran four times successfully from 1996 in the single constituency Aichi 1, which includes parts of Nagoya and is considered a democratic stronghold.

In April 2009, Kawamura resigned from parliament to run for Takehisa Matsubara in the April 26 mayoral election in Nagoya . He ran as an independent, but was supported by the Democrats. His main competitor Masahiko Hosokawa enjoyed the support of the national governing parties LDP and Kōmeitō . During the election campaign, Kawamura campaigned for a reduction in municipal taxes and city personnel expenses. He received over half a million votes and was able to clearly distance Hosokawa (around 283,000 votes) and two other candidates from himself. The election result was seen by parts of the Democrats as a strengthening of chairman Ichirō Ozawa , who was damaged by a donation scandal .

The implementation of his election promises brought Kawamura into conflict with the city council, which approved a ten percent cut in the municipal "citizen tax " ( jūmin-zei ) only on the basis of annual reviews and refused to reduce members' salaries and downsize the city council. Kawamura initiated a process to dissolve the city council in 2010 . In October 2010, Kawamura's supporters submitted the petition with the necessary signatures from a fifth of the voters to initiate a referendum on the dissolution of the city council. However, over 100,000 signatures were initially declared invalid in November 2010. Kawamura then announced his early resignation in order to receive a clear mandate for his reform projects in new elections - simultaneously with the gubernatorial elections in Aichi on February 6, 2011. Another review by the Nagoya City Election Supervision Commission in December 2010 found that there were enough valid votes. The vote, the first of its kind in a “big city by government decree” ( seirei shitei toshi ), also took place on February 6, 2011 and was passed with a turnout of 54%, the new elections for the city council will take place within 40 days. The City Council's Democratic Group opposed Kawamura and supported the candidacy of former Shūgiin MP Yoshihiro Ishida , formerly mayor of Inuyama , in the mayoral elections . Kawamura clearly won the election against Ishida and two other candidates.

In April 2010 Kawamura founded the Genzei Nippon party ( 減税 日本 , "Japan tax cut"), which seeks an absolute majority in new city ​​council elections and supported the successful candidacy of the former Shūgiin MP Hideaki Ōmura (formerly LDP) in the gubernatorial elections in Aichi .

At the beginning of August 2019, after a visit, Mayor Kawamura publicly called for the closure of an exhibition "After Freedom of Speech" which took place as part of the Aichi Triennale in Nagoya and which, among other things, featured a " comfort women statue" to the approx. 200,000 especially Korean sex slaves of the Japanese military remembered the 1930s and 1940s. This demand, which he justified with the claim that the figure "hurts the feelings of the Japanese", led to terrorist threats from numerous right-wing extremists, including the remark that a petrol can would be smuggled in and the figure set on fire. The organizers justified the subsequent closure of the exhibition on grounds of security concerns, despite the fact that the governor of Aichi Prefecture Hideaki Ōmura had previously described the mayor's request as "presumably unconstitutional". Citizens and publishers asked for the exhibition to be reopened.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 名古屋 市長 選 挙 . (No longer available online.) In: ザ ・ 選 挙 . JANJAN (Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures) on April 27, 2009, archived from the original on April 27, 2009 ; Retrieved April 30, 2009 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.senkyo.janjan.jp
  2. ↑ Editorial: A respite for the DPJ. In: The Japan Times . April 30, 2009, accessed April 29, 2009 .
  3. ^ Nagoya mayor, assembly clash / Kawamura leads drive to dissolve municipal body for recall election. (No longer available online.) In: Daily Yomiuri Online . August 29, 2010, archived from the original on August 31, 2010 ; accessed on October 8, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.yomiuri.co.jp
  4. ↑ Nagoya mayor petitions to recall city assembly. In: The Japan Times . August 21, 2010, accessed October 8, 2010 .
  5. ↑ Nagoya assembly faces recall referendum. Petition in place; mayor wants property tax cut, wage cut foes ousted. In: The Japan Times . October 4, 2010, accessed October 8, 2010 .
  6. ↑ Nagoya recall petition fails. In: The Japan Times . November 25, 2010, accessed November 25, 2010 .
  7. ^ Voters view failed Nagoya recall petition. In: The Japan Times . November 26, 2010, accessed November 26, 2010 .
  8. ↑ Nagoya mayor to step down, run again after petition defeat. In: Mainichi Daily News . November 26, 2010, archived from the original on November 28, 2010 ; accessed on November 26, 2010 (English).
  9. ↑ 愛 知 県 知事 に 大村 氏 名古屋 市長 に 河村 氏 名古屋 市 議会 は 解散 決定 . (No longer available online.) In: Chūnichi Shimbun . February 6, 2011, archived from the original on February 9, 2011 ; Retrieved February 6, 2011 (Japanese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.chunichi.co.jp
  10. ↑ 有効 署名 は 36 万 ９ 千人 分 市 議会 解散 の 住民 投票 へ 準備 加速 . In: 47 News / Kyōdō Tsūshin . December 15, 2010, Retrieved December 15, 2010 (Japanese).
  11. ↑ 名古屋 、 住民 投票 へ 2 月 に 市長 ・ 知事 ト リ プ ル 選 か . In: Asahi Shimbun . December 16, 2010, archived from the original on December 17, 2010 ; Retrieved December 15, 2010 (Japanese).
  12. ↑ a b In reversal, Nagoya assembly faces recall. Referendum petition recount sides with mayor. In: The Japan Times . December 16, 2010, accessed December 16, 2010 .
  13. ↑ 名古屋 市長 選 ： 石田 衆院 議員 出馬 へ 民主 、 河村 氏 に 対 抗 . In: Mainichi Shimbun . December 15, 2010, archived from the original on December 16, 2010 ; Retrieved December 15, 2010 (Japanese).
  14. ↑ Basler Zeitung: The consolation woman should burn
  15. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung die-comfort-woman-should-burn-1.4553122
  16. ↑ Japan Times: protests-may-see-comfort-women-statue-removed
  17. ↑ Japan Times: /2019/08/05/national/aichi-governor-calls-mayors-demand-comfort-women-exhibition-closed-unconstitutional/#.XVAp1eSP7L8
  18. ↑ Japan Times - Reopening exhibition Nagoya

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kawamura, Takashi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 河村 た か し (Japanese); 河村 隆 之 (Japanese maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Nagoya , Aichi Prefecture , Japan