Ikata, Ehime - Politics

Politics

Ikata experienced significant political turbulence leading up to and immediately following the April 1, 2005 merger with Seto and Misaki.

To begin with, multiple potential merger plans were put forth, one of which was for all of the contiguous Nishiuwa District towns (Misaki, Seto, Old Ikata, and Honai) to merge. However, when Honai announced that it would merge with the nearby city of Yawatahama, polls indicated that Misaki residents still preferred to merge with Honai and Yawatahama, rather than Seto and Old Ikata, despite their being discontiguous (a Misaki-Honai-Yawatahama merger would make Misaki an exclave). Ultimately this was found to be impractical, and the Misaki-Seto-Ikata merger was approved with some grumbling over the naming of the new town.

Once the merger was decided upon, suggestions for the new town's name were solicited from the residents. Despite the many other reasonable suggestions and the seeming unfairness toward Seto and Misaki, the "new" name was chosen to be "Ikata."

Following the merger a heated mayoral race was held, with 11 members of incumbent Kiyoyoshi Nakamoto's campaign arrested for electoral fraud. Challenger Yoshihisa Hatanaka ultimately won, only to be arrested in February 2006 for corruption relating to government construction contracts. He resigned soon thereafter.

A second race was held in April 2006, with Kazuhiko Yamashita defeating rival Kiyohiko Takakado by only 90 votes. Voter turnout was 87.43%.

There has been and remains political resistance among some Ikata residents to the nuclear power plant. Most recently this has revolved around the now-approved plan to implement MOX fuel in Unit 3 of the Ikata plant.