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<h1 id="headline">Political earthquake in Osaka</h1>
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<div id="writer">By <b><a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/JTsearch5.cgi?term1=KEVIN%20RAFFERTY">KEVIN RAFFERTY</a></b></div>
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<p class="JTparagraph">HONG KONG &mdash; Toru Hashimoto's huge victory in the  Osaka mayoral election was undoubtedly a political earthquake. The  question now is how sweeping and powerful will be the tsunami that  follows. My worry is that Tokyo, and particularly the political and  bureaucratic establishment, does not comprehend the tectonic forces  working underground.</p>
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<p class="JTparagraph">The election was the start, not the end, of  the action. Hashimoto challenged, and defeated the combined forces of  Japan's political establishment. He has now issued another challenge: He  wants to be the prime mover and maker of a new political and economic  center of power based in Osaka. This could prove, depending on how the  old pols and bureaucrats react, either the opportunity to create a twin  engine with Tokyo in reforming and reviving Japan, or spark a dangerous  squabble between the two biggest regions of Japan that could weaken  Tokyo's ascendancy and the whole country.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">Hashimoto, a boyish-looking 42-year-old  lawyer, father of seven children and self-confessed son of a gangster,  has demonstrated that he is a talented, telegenic populist politician  with an ability to say something exciting to each generation. His  flashes of abrasive and autocratic temperament also suggest someone  tempted to take matters into his own hands if he cannot get his own way.  Equally dangerously, Japan's political establishment is lost in a daze  in a maze without a clue how to find its way out, let alone to deal with  Hashimoto's challenge.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">Victory proved Hashimoto's strength. The  local chapters of the governing Democratic Party of Japan and opposition  Liberal Democratic Party joined forces in backing incumbent Mayor Kunio  Hiramatsu. The Japanese Communist Party did not field a candidate, but  fiercely attacked Hashimoto. Hashimoto, the man of action, swept  fuddy-duddy Hiramatsu aside and won almost 60 percent of the vote in an  election that attracted the highest turnout for decades.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">Before resigning last month as governor of  Osaka Prefecture embracing Osaka and 32 surrounding cities, four months  before his term expired, to run for mayor, Hashimoto shrewdly nominated  his ally Ichiro Matsui, aged 47, to succeed him, and Matsui beat six  other candidates to take over the governor's job. Hashimoto's avowed  next step is to consolidate the Osaka urban area into a political unity.  In the immediate triumph of victory he set himself and Tokyo a deadline  of four years to establish the Osaka metropolis.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">A lot of what Hashimoto urges makes sense.  The idea that Osaka city of the mayoral election is an island of 2.6  million people is a nonsense of artificial boundaries established too  long ago. Osaka is the heart of a continuous urban area that embraces  not only the eight plus million people of Osaka prefecture, but almost  20 million people in neighboring Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">The major campuses of Osaka University are  technically in Suita and Toyonaka cities, but they are all part of the  same urban sprawl, as close to the center of Osaka as Shinjuku is to  Kasumigaseki or Shepherds Bush to the city of London. Technically, Osaka  is Japan's third biggest city, after Tokyo, which has 8 million people  in the 23 wards of the metropolis and 13 million in Tokyo prefecture,  and Yokohama with 3.6 million, though Yokohama and Tokyo are also part  of a continuous megalopolis of 30 plus million people.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">There is a swirl of daily movement into Osaka  &mdash; where the city's daytime population is almost 4 million &mdash; from Kyoto  and Hyogo, which are only 35 and 30 minutes away by train or 17 minutes  by Shinkansen. Local lore has it that a cultured person goes to school  in Kyoto, works in Osaka and lives in Kobe, the main city of Hyogo.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">Hashimoto faces three hurdles before he can  see his dream accomplished. The least difficult is to get resolutions in  favor of an Osaka metropolis passed in the Osaka prefectural assembly,  already controlled by his Osaka Ishin no Kai (Osaka Renewal Group), and  by Osaka and Sakai cities. He would also have to win a majority in a  referendum of affected people, a constitutional requirement, and would  then have to get the central government to revise the Local Government  Law.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">The last is the most difficult given the  attitude of Tokyo politicians that creation of an Osaka metropolis is  something for the back burner with the gas turned off. Tokyo-based  commentators have glibly said that Hashimoto has shunted himself down a  cul-de-sac by becoming a mere mayor. This is a mistake. Hashimoto is a  determined guy, who has already threatened to call Osaka city elections,  where his group holds only 33 of the 86 seats, to bend the council to  his will.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">Osaka and Kansai generally have a different,  more commercial view of life and its necessities. Tokyo people greet  each other with a general &quot;How are you?&quot;; but the typical Osaka greeting  is &quot;<i>moukari makka</i>?&quot; or &quot;How much money have you made today?&quot; In  the current exigent economic times, the answer is not as much as people  would like. Osaka, home to Panasonic, Sharp and the birthplace of the  Sumitomo group, is suffering 7 percent unemployment, nearly 30 percent  higher than Japan generally.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">Hashimoto believes that red tape and too many  sluggish bureaucracies obstruct revival of Osaka's economic spirits.  But Hashimoto himself is sometimes right in principle, but tends to rush  in and get practical things wrong. His abrasive impatience saw him  clash with neighboring Hyogo over his desire to close Osaka's Itami  airport, most of whose land is in Hyogo. Anyone who has to use  expensive, distant Kansai airport with its slow immigration and  suspicious customs officials would wish instead that Itami became a  second expanding Haneda.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">The correct response is to accept that the  existing local government administrative boundaries need to change to  reflect demographic and social changes, the need to involve local people  in decisions affecting them and to boost economic and political reform  of Japan.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">Encourage Hashimoto to provide practical  details of how an Osaka metropolis would work, but also investigate  whether a Kansai &mdash; and for that matter a Tokyo &mdash; megalopolis would work  better, not only in terms of efficiency but also government for the  people. Set a two year time limit for redrawing the administrative map  of Osaka, Kansai and Japan as a whole to create a 21st-century Japan  that can be an example of democracy for the world.</p>
<p class="JTparagraph">It would be a mistake for the established  politicians and bureaucrats to sit on their hands and hope that  Hashimoto will go away or to obfuscate with talk of general  administrative reforms. He has powerful friends, mostly  independent-minded politicians who have won office by appealing directly  to a public disgruntled with grubby politics as usual. Populist  politics would be a dangerous game that Hashimoto might be tempted to  play if frustrated. It could unleash a tsunami of popular discontent on  Japan's political process.</p>
<div class="JTbio">Kevin Rafferty is author of &quot;Inside Japan's Powerhouses,&quot; an account of Japan Inc. and internationalization.</div>
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