{"id":179296,"date":"2026-08-24T11:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T02:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/?post_type=news&#038;p=179296&#038;lang=en"},"modified":"2026-08-24T11:59:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T02:59:00","slug":"fukuoka-mayor-soichiro-takashima-will-not-seek-fifth-term","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/en\/news\/fukuoka-mayor-soichiro-takashima-will-not-seek-fifth-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima Will Not Seek Fifth Term"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima announced on August 23 that he will not run in the November 15 mayoral election and will leave office when his fourth term ends on December 6. Takashima first became mayor in 2010 at age 36 and has served for 16 years. He said he had considered stepping aside before his fourth campaign and decided that prolonged tenure by one leader could make it harder for new candidates to emerge. He cited population growth of about 200,000, a 60% rise in tax revenue, improved public trust in city government, and lower municipal debt during his tenure. No candidate had declared for the election as of his announcement. Takashima said he would continue serving fully through his final day in office.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-179297\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mayor-august.jpg?resize=1258%2C891&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1258\" height=\"891\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mayor-august.jpg?w=1258&amp;ssl=1 1258w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mayor-august.jpg?resize=300%2C212&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mayor-august.jpg?resize=1024%2C725&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mayor-august.jpg?resize=768%2C544&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> Soichiro Takashima\u2019s facebook<br \/>\n<strong>Photo:<\/strong> Soichiro Takashima<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima announced on August 23 that he will not run in the November 15 mayoral election and will leave office when his fourth term ends on December 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":179297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"class_list":["post-179296","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location-fukuoka-city","news-category-politics","en-US"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/179296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}