Start date April 11, 1999 | ||
Winner Shintaro Ishihara | ||
Tokyo held a gubernatorial election on April 11, 1999 as part of the 14th unified local elections. Incumbent Yukio Aoshima announced that he would not seek re-election. All major candidates ran as independents but several were supported by major parties. The Liberal Democratic Party, led by Secretary General Yoshiro Mori, supported Yasushi Akashi as a compromise with coalition partner New Komeito, but local LDP legislators divided their support between candidates Ishihara, Masuzoe and Kakizawa.
Author and former Diet member Shintaro Ishihara, who had previously come in second in the 1975 gubernatorial election against incumbent governor Ryokichi Minobe, won the election on a nationalist platform, saying that he would have the United States return Yokota Air Base to Japan and clarify its position on Japan's ownership of the Senkaku Islands. Akashi came in fourth, the poorest showing by an LDP-supported candidate in Tokyo history.