The gubernatorial election campaign got underway in Fukuoka Prefecture last week ago. Below are summaries of each candidates’ manifestos. As always, these translations were made by us, Fukuoka Now, and not official statements – provided here for your convenience. Early voting is accepted until April 9 inside the Fukuoka City Hall 1F lobby, or at designated voting venues in your residing Ward. Source: News 24 / Nishinippon Shimbun
Mieko Hoshino (former member of Fukuoka City Assembly/ Independent)
Core policies:
• Fight against COVID-19 with all political might to protect people’s lives.
• Promote gender equality.
• Implement change towards an administration with a higher level of social security.
Anti-coronavirus measures:
• Expand the targets of free COVID-19 screenings (residents of elderly care homes and medical facilities.)
• Expand the scale of COVID-19 random screenings (‘PCR monitoring’) ten times the current scale.
• Financially aid medical institutions that experienced income decline.
• Hire more staff at health centers and open new offices.
• Protest against cuts in the number of hospital beds and hospital mergers.
Economy and employment:
• Upgrade support programs for restaurant businesses and mid and small-sized companies.
• Actively collaborate with local mid and small-sized companies in developing useful public services.
• Introduce financial programs to support home renovation and remodeling.
• Widely expand the use of renewable energy.
• Stand against the resumption of nuclear power plants.
• Boost financial aid for those who get jobs in agriculture.
• Introduce wage ordinance for public projects.
• Enhance financial aid for cultural and art activities.
• Improve working conditions of nursery and elderly-care workers.
Child rearing and education:
• Provide free medical treatments to residents of 18 years old and under.
• Facilitate openings of more licensed nurseries (‘ninka hoikuen.’)
• Strengthen supports for single-parent households.
• Increase the number of school teachers and classrooms to introduce a smaller-class system as early as possible.
• Create a new scholarship program that does not have to be repaid.
Welfare:
• Lower the premium for national health insurance and more.
• Support development of special nursing homes for the elderly.
• Reduce financial burden upon using long-term care insurance.
Public projects:
• Suspend the construction of Shimonoseki Kitakyushu Road and other large-scale projects.
Others:
• Increase the rate of female managers in the prefectural government to 30% as the first step.
• Make an ordinance to eliminate gender discrimination and foster mutual respects.
Seitaro Hattori (current Fukuoka Vice Governor/ Independent)
Core policies:
• Realize a society in which people can “work,” “live” and “rear” in their familiar environments.
• Educate human resources to lead the next generation.
• Promote measures to combat infectious diseases common to humans and animals.”One Health”.
Anti-coronavirus measures:
• Increase the number of hospital beds for the virus treatment.
• Work closely with local municipalities to smoothly provide vaccinations.
• Support introductions of additional medical equipment and screening devices.
• Accelerate development of COVID-19 medical drugs in collaboration with medical startups.
• Boost the number of public health nurses.
Economy and employment:
• Support mid and small-sized companies to introduce business innovations and expand sales channels.
• Boost consumption of prefectural products through e-commerce events.
• Issue premium coupons.
• Subsidize establishments of new businesses in the fields of bio-tech, space and more.
• Make the region suitable for accepting new residents and businesses.
• Actively invite international financial functions.
• Promote the use of offshore wind power and become a key region of such a business.
• Back up branding and digitalization in the field of agriculture.
Child rearing and education:
• Support and encourage qualified nursery teachers to go back to work in classrooms.
• Increase the number of licensed child welfare social workers and child psychologists to prevent child abuse.
• Strengthen supports for single-parent households.
• Reinforce counsel systems for students and pupils.
• Accelerate provisions of ICT environments at prefectural schools.
Welfare:
• Discover job demands for aged residents to achieve ‘a society where people stay active in the workplace at 70 years old.’
• Support balancing work and eldercare and prevent retirements of family caregivers.
• Public projects:
• Back up runway extension project for Kitakyushu Airport.
• Accelerate development of Shimonoseki Kitakyushu Road.
Others:
• Promote the flood control project to reduce natural disasters.
• Call for decentralization and promote fiscal, administrative and political reforms.
Disclaimer: Fukuoka Now posts summaries of Kyushu area news for those who cannot read Japanese. These are mostly summaries of publicly posted news from the Japanese media. Errors might occur during translation, those are ours. Images are sourced separately and are for illustrative purposes only. Use this form to send feedback. Please share links to this page, it helps us.
