GGRAsia – Pro-IR mayor elected in Hokkaido’s Tomakomai city

Pro-IR mayor elected in Hokkaido’s Tomakomai city

Dec 09, 2024 Newsdesk Japan, Latest News, Top of the deck

A fresh mayoral candidate in favour of a tilt for an integrated resort (IR) with casino in the Japanese city of Tomakomai (pictured), in Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture, won Sunday’s election there.

Suguru Kanazawa, a former member of Tomakomai city council, had been endorsed by the Liberal Democratic Party, the country’s main proponent of the IR policy, and another grouping called ‘New Party Daichi’.

Hokkaido had at one stage mulled bidding to the national authorities for the right to host an IR in an initial round of applications.

News of Mr Kanazawa’s success comes soon after Omura, a city within Nagasaki prefecture – a local authority that did apply for an IR but was not approved in an initial round – witnessed a meeting in support of another attempt to host one.

Additionally, in late November, Nagasaki’s governor, Kengo Oishi, told media the prefecture had received a “questionnaire” that month from the Japan Tourism Agency regarding the country’s policy of having IRs. The official did not clarify whether the new questionnaire might signal the countdown to a new application phase for additional casino resort licences in the country.

The candidacy of Tomakomai’s Mr Kanazawa had been backed by ex-Tomakomai mayor Hirofumi Iwakura, who had also pursued an IR policy for that community.

The new mayor won the two-candidate contest on a low turnout of eligible voters. Nonetheless at 33.99 percent, the turnout was up 4.71 percentage points on the previous mayoral election, in June 2022, according to information reviewed by GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent.

The victor received 28,879 votes. His rival Kazuya Tamura, a former city official – endorsed by the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party – got 24,925 votes.

Tomakomai, an economically-straitened industrial port, had witnessed in June a meeting of people who support a long-expressed aim of building there an IR.

In November 2019, Hokkaido governor Naomichi Suzuki passed up the chance of making a pitch to the country’s government – during a first window for local authority applications – to host a casino resort as part of Japan’s liberalisation process for such business.

So far, only one scheme, the JPY1.27-trillion (US$8.47-billion currently) MGM Osaka, has been approved. That project is under construction, and is due to open in 2030.