Okinawa Prefectural Parliament

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The parliament building in Naha in the foreground, in the background the main building of the prefectural administration

The Okinawa Prefecture Parliament ( Japanese 沖 縄 県 議会 Okinawa kengikai ) is the parliament (gikai) of the Japanese prefecture (ken) Okinawa . Today it works basically like other prefectural parliaments: it adopts the prefectural budget , statutes (jōrei) and has to approve important personnel nominations of the governor for the prefecture administration Okinawa ; the representatives are elected directly every four years through non-transferable individual votes. However, its history is a special case in Japan.

Composition and final election

Fractions
(as of July 2020)
       
A total of 48 seats
  • KPY : 7
  • Okinawa ・ Heiwa ( 沖 縄 ・ 平和 , "Okinawa - Peace"; with SDP and Shadaitō ): 8
  • Okinawa ( お き な わ ; from independents, supports the governor): 3
  • Tīda Net ( て ぃ ー だ ネ ッ ト , tīda = Okinawan "sun / sunny"; independent, KDP ): 7
  • Mushozoku no kai ( 無 所属 の 会 , "association of the independents"; from independents, Sōzō -nah): 2
  • Kōmeitō : 2
  • Okinawa ・Jimintō ( 沖 縄 ・ 自民党 , "Okinawa - LDP"): 19

The Okinawa Parliament today has a regular 48 members, elected in 13 constituencies, including not a single winner-take-all constituency and six two-mandate constituencies in which a division of seats between the two largest camps or parties is likely; Most of the remaining constituencies have magnitudes between three and five, the constituency 那覇 市 ・ 南部 離島 Naha-shi / nanbu ritō (city of Naha / southern outer islands), which consists of the capital Naha and part of the district of Shimajiri , elects eleven members .

Alongside those of Tokyo , Ibaraki , Iwate , Miyagi and Fukushima , the parliament is one of the last six prefectural parliaments that are not elected in unified regional elections. Instead, it has had its own election cycle since the re-establishment after the return of the US Ryūkyū Islands in June 1972, which is also followed by a series of local elections in Okinawa (hence sometimes referred to as "small / mini / local / Okinawa-uniform regional elections") ).

In the last elections in June 2020 , the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won additional seats and became the strongest single party with 17 seats; but the "prefectural government parties", that is, the left opponents of the Stüzpunktpunkt, who have been the governor of Okinawa since 2014, defended a majority with 25 seats ( KPJ 7, SDP 4, Shadaitō 2, KDP 1, Independent 11). The Kōmeitō fell back to two seats. “Opposition” and “neutral” independents each won two seats. The terms "prefectural government" and "opposition parties" (kensei-yotō / yatō) are used in Japan, but do not have the same narrower meaning as in parliamentary systems such as at the national level: Since the governor is directly elected in a presidential system, it is not necessarily dependent on a fixed majority in parliament.

history

Okinawa was already prefecture (ken) since it was fully integrated into the Japanese Empire , but initially similar to Hokkaidō (today interpreted as "Northern Sea Prefecture / Hokkai Prefecture", but at that time only -fu and -ken counted fully as prefectures, the -dō was not fully equated until 1946) not yet fully equated with the other prefectures of motherland Japan and only gradually received the same (already very limited) self-government rights. It was not until 1909 that the 1890 prefectural order (fukensei) came into effect in Okinawa , and it received an elected prefectural assembly (kenkai) . It went out with the beginning of the US military rule of the Ryūkyū Islands. In the USCAR , an elected parliament, the Rippōin ( 立法院 English Legislature of the Government of the Ryukyu Islands ) was set up after a provisional forerunner in 1952 . When the US Ryūkyū Islands became the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa again in 1972, a prefectural parliament was established again, now as in the rest of Japan since 1947 under the name -gikai and with the more extensive rights of self-government guaranteed by the constitution and the local government law. (In practice, however, many Japanese prefecture and local parliaments are very "tame" at most times: the proportion of constitutional initiatives / budget drafts / personnel nominations introduced by the executive and passed by parliament without any fundamental changes is high overall.) In Okinawa, this remains high extensive US military presence is an issue, and especially when, as in recent years, there is a left majority in the prefectural parliament and a left governor rules, political conflicts with the Japanese national government and the Pentagon over the military bases are the order of the day.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Members by parliamentary group , accessed on July 4, 2020.
  2. ↑ 県 議会 の 組織> 各 選 挙 区 ご と の 定 数 (Organization of the prefecture parliament: constituencies and mandate numbers), accessed on June 11, 2020.
  3. ↑ 沖 縄 県 議 選 . In: NHK SenkyoWeb. June 7, 2020, accessed June 11, 2020 (Japanese).
  4. ↑ 沖 縄 県 議 選 辺 野 古 移 設 中止 訴 え る 知事 与 党 が 過半数 維持 投票 率 過去 最低 . In: Mainichi Shimbun . June 8, 2020, accessed June 11, 2020 (Japanese).
  5. ↑ 沖 縄 県 議 選 、 知事 派 が 過半数 維持 辺 野 古 対 立 続 く . In: Nihon Keizai Shimbun . June 8, 2020, accessed June 11, 2020 (Japanese).
  6. ↑ Election pages of the Okinawa Prefectural Administration for the 2020 general election: 令 和 ２ 年 沖 縄 県 議会 議員 一般 選 挙 Reiwa 2-nen Okinawa kengikai giin ippan seityo
  7. ↑ 沖 縄 県 議会 の あ ゆ み (Development of the Okinawa Prefectural Parliament), accessed on October 31, 2019.

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