Japanese Elections - Prefectural and Local Elections

Prefectural and Local Elections

Prefectural assemblies and governors, as well as mayors and assemblies in municipalities are elected for four-year terms. Every chief executive or assembly has an independent four-year election cycle that may change after resignations, deaths, recalls etc. Many prefectural and municipal elections are held at the same time in the "unified local elections" (tōitsu chihō senkyo); in the last unified local elections in April 2011, 13 of 47 governors, 44 of 47 prefectural assemblies, 489 of 1,750 mayors and 747 of 1,750 municipal assemblies were scheduled to be elected; but one gubernatorial, three prefectural assembly and several municipal elections in Eastern Japan were postponed as a result of the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011.

In the first unified election in April 1947, all local elections in the then 46 prefectures (Okinawa was under military rule) and all their municipalities were unified. As of January 2013, non-unified local elections include:

  • on the prefectural level
    • gubernatorial elections
      • last held in 2009: Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, Ibaraki, Chiba, Gifu, Shizuoka, Hyōgo, Hiroshima
      • last held in 2010: Fukushima, Ishikawa, Nagano, Shiga, Kyoto, Wakayama, Kagawa, Ehime, Nagasaki, Okinawa
      • last held in 2011 (but not in the unified elections in April): Aomori, Iwate, Gunma, Saitama, Yamanashi, Aichi, Osaka, Kōchi, Miyazaki
      • last held in 2012: Tochigi, Tokyo, Niigata, Toyama, Okayama, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto, Kagoshima
    • assembly elections
      • last held in 2009: Tokyo
      • last held in 2010: Ibaraki
      • last held in 2011 (but not in the unified elections in April): Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima
      • last held in 2012: Okinawa
  • on the municipal level
    • in designated major cities
      • mayoral elections in Sendai, Saitama, Chiba, Yokohama, Kawasaki, Niigata, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Sakai, Kōbe, Okayama, Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka
      • assembly elections in Sendai, Shizuoka, Nagoya, Kitakyūshū

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