Despite the latest disaster, Shingo Mimura, the incumbent governor running for his third term, easily won the election, according to the Japanese media, as he successfully pitched himself as a steady hand who could pull Aomori prefecture's struggling economy out of its post-quake slump.
Takashi Yamauchi, a former prefectural assembly member endorsed by Prime Minister Naoto Kan's ruling Democratic Party of Japan, was unable to close the wide gap with the popular governor. The challenger, until recently a supporter of nuclear power himself, had called during the final weeks of the campaign for putting plans for new power plants on hold.
Sunday's results indicate that even after Japan's nuclear calamity, giving up the perks that come with nuclear-power plants is a difficult decision for people in rural areas like Aomori, located on the northern end of the tsunami-ravaged coast in the Tohoku region.
"We have made up our mind to co-exist with nuclear-power plants," says Shigenori Sasatake, the nuclear-policy chief in Higashidori, a village of 8,000, which hosts the prefecture's only nuclear reactor, and has another under construction. "That stance remains unchanged."
Aomori is an ideal place to take the temperature of local communities on the issue of nuclear power. In addition to the Higashidori reactor, the prefecture also has the nation's only nuclear-reprocessing plant at Rokkasho. It was set to be the site of four of 14 new reactors Japan planned to build by 2030.
Two facilities in the area were under construction before March 11: one in Higashidori and another in the nearby town of Oma. With long-term plans under review, construction has been suspended, leaving these communities in a limbo.
Aomori is also one of the poorest prefectures, with an unemployment rate among the highest in Japan. The nuclear industry is expected to provide 13% of the prefecture's total tax revenue during the current fiscal year, in addition to generous subsidies that nuclear-hosting communities receive from the central government.
Despite the accident in Fukushima, support for nuclear power persists in Japan, one of the world's largest consumers of nuclear energy for civic use. Mr. Kan has said the government will review its current policy, and even announced a plan to shut down for a time an existing plant, pending safety upgrades. But he also has said nuclear power remains a key part of Japan's energy policy.
The election in Aomori comes as many nations review their nuclear-energy policies following the Fukushima accident. Germany decided to close all of its 17 nuclear reactors by 2022, following a local election where a staunchly anti-nuke candidate won after the Japanese accident. Nations such as China and Taiwan have suspended plans for new reactors while the U.S. has conducted reviews.
Throughout his campaign, Mr. Mimura, an independent and backed by the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, avoided making nuclear power a campaign issue. He said only that the prefecture will strengthen its safety evaluation. In his campaign policy literature, he pledged promoting an "energy package system" as a key industry in the prefecture, including nuclear-power generation and reprocessing.
In a 20-minute campaign speech given outside a supermarket Thursday, the 56-year-old governor repeatedly mentioned "protecting people's lives" but never uttered the world "nuclear."
Still, support for Mr. Mimura had eroded for the latest campaign, particularly among large, organized voting blocs that had traditionally accepted the prefecture's nuclear push. The local branch of Rengo, the umbrella organization for labor unions, and the political arm of the local agricultural cooperative union both dropped their endorsements for Gov. Mimura this time after supporting him in the last election.
"The plight of farmers in Fukushima—watching those farmers who had to abandon their cows as they fled—just broke our hearts," said Kiyohiko Narumi, a 53-year-old apple farmer who heads the prefectural agricultural union's political arm. "The same could happen to our apples and rice. There is no guarantee the nuclear plants in Aomori can withstand a huge tsunami."
And even some voters whose livelihood is entwined with nuclear plants were having a second thought. Take Ami Nakatsuka, a 22-year-old homemaker in Higashidori. Ms. Nakatsuka's husband lost his job as a welder at one of the plants under construction when the work there was suspended post-March 11, following a national review of nuclear reactors.
"Without nuclear plants, there will be a serious unemployment problem," she said. "But the accident in Fukushima really scares me. "
Ms. Nakatsuka's husband now works in a nuclear plant in western Japan, leaving behind his wife and three-month-old baby.
[ online.wsj.com ]
