appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Julian Ryall

Yokohama’s mayor has become the latest local official in Japan to be forced from office by scandal, as analysts say voters are no longer willing to look the other way.
Takeharu Yamanaka reportedly called his staff “human trash” and told a senior official to “commit seppuku” (ritual suicide) if the city failed to win a bid for an international conference.
He stepped down on Friday after a prolonged investigation found he had repeatedly verbally abused city employees and humiliated subordinates.
“Public attitudes have changed a lot in recent years,” said Hiromi Murakami, a political-science professor at Temple University’s Tokyo branch.
This sort of behaviour has been going on for years in local governments
Hiromi Murakami, political-science professor
“This sort of behaviour has been going on for years in local governments, companies and organisations in Japan but there is far greater awareness about bullying now and people are less willing to tolerate it.”
Yamanaka, a former university professor who was first elected mayor in 2021 and won re-election in August last year, became the subject of an external investigation after a senior city official accused him of harassment.
The resulting report, released in late July, found that he had spent years terrorising his own staff – screaming at employees, hurling documents across desks and calling officials “useless”.
It concluded that Yamanaka had committed “serious acts of power harassment that deeply damaged employees’ dignity and worsened the workplace environment”.

By the time he faced reporters at city hall on Friday, there was little left to defend.
“I did not sufficiently consider the weight of words spoken from the position of mayor or how my words and actions would be perceived,” he said, apologising and accepting what he called the city assembly’s “severe judgment” before confirming his resignation.
Analysts say Yamanaka had no real alternative by that point. Once the report’s findings were public knowledge, the pressure became unsustainable.
“We seem to be seeing more and more cases of people elected to high positions in local governments around the country who seem to believe that they hold huge amounts of power, that they are superior to everyone else and that they cannot be touched,” Murakami said. “But it is clear that has changed.”
A familiar pattern
Yamanaka is not the first Japanese politician to be brought low by scandal.
In July last year, former Ito mayor Maki Takubo admitted she had not graduated from Toyo University as claimed on her campaign materials. She resigned within weeks and was later questioned by police after investigators found digital traces of the allegedly forged diploma on her computer.
Ex-Ginan mayor Hideo Kojima resigned in March 2024 after 99 separate allegations of sexual harassment from female city hall employees, including accusations that he had groped a colleague. His resignation press conference was tearful yet not career-ending: he ran for a town council seat afterwards and won.

In Maebashi, Akira Ogawa was forced out as mayor in November after it emerged she had met a male subordinate at a love hotel at least 10 times, meetings she insisted were purely professional. The municipal assembly was not persuaded, forcing her resignation, yet by January this year, Ogawa had staged a comeback, winning re-election as an independent on a platform built around “atonement”.
And in Ichikawa, voters ousted Hirotami Murakoshi in March 2022 following revelations that he had spent 3.6 million yen (US$22,500) of public money on a private shower room and leased a Tesla as his official car.
Untouchable no more
For Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor of politics at Tokyo’s Waseda University, the throughline connecting all these scandals in local Japanese politics is a culture of impunity that persisted for years.
“This is the old culture that has long been part of Japanese politics at the local level,” he said.
“These people have grown up seeing their elected representatives doing these sorts of things and nobody challenging them and the media effectively ignoring whatever they do, but suddenly that is changing.”
Money is part of the story too. With households across Japan squeezed by a prolonged cost of living crisis, voters have far less patience for officials who splash public cash on themselves or their vanity projects.

“Before, they had a lot of power and a lot of money so they felt untouchable,” Shigemura said. “But people and the media are now speaking out and they are being directly criticised.”
Murakami agreed. “It is much harder to cover it up now,” she said, adding that the string of scandals could provide an opportunity to reset the terms of public office in Japan.
“I hope that will have an impact,” she said, arguing that the added scrutiny should remind anyone seeking elected office that they ultimately answered to the people who put them there.
Yokohama’s city council announced on Monday that voters would choose Yamanaka’s successor as mayor with a special by-election on October 18.


How Kenya’s sacred Mrima Hill became new front in US-China minerals rivalry

Japanese museums shun video artwork on wartime atrocities acclaimed abroad

How Asia-Pacific property markets are drawing fresh capital despite US rate uncertainty

In Japan’s mountains, a gentler way to prevent bear attacks

Japan

Bullying mayor ousted as Japan’s voters reject political abuse

Former Yokohama mayor Takeharu Yamanaka speaks to reporters following a meeting with supporters on Friday. Photo: Kyodo

An industrial zone in Yokohama, Japan’s Kanagawa prefecture, is seen with Mount Fuji in the background. Photo: AFP

Hideo Kojima wipes away tears as he speaks at a press conference in the town of Ginan, Japan’s Gifu prefecture, announcing his resignation in February 2024. Photo: AFP

People shop at a tableware store in Tokyo on August 21. Voters have far less patience for profligate officials amid Japan’s cost of living crisis, observers say. Photo: EPA

What is really behind Japan’s planned cabinet shake-up?

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi arrives at her office in Tokyo on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi meets US President Donald Trump at the White House in March. Photo: Getty Images 

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh shake hands upon signing a memorandum on maritime security cooperation in New Delhi on Thursday. Photo: Kyodo

Shunichi Suzuki (centre), secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, speaks to reporters after visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on August 15. Photo: Kyodo

Japanese Trade and Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa (second from right) holds talks with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (second from left) in Washington in February. Photo: Kyodo

Japan wants 60 million tourists, but China isn’t sending them

Tourists throng a shopping street in front of Sensoji Temple in the popular Asakusa district of Tokyo, Japan, last month. Photo: Kyodo

Tourists travel on a subway train to Tokyo’s city centre from Narita International Airport. Photo: AFP

Tourists crowd around a suspension bridge in Kamikochi, a highland resort in Japan’s Nagano prefecture, in April. Photo: Kyodo

Tourists visit Tokyo’s Asakusa district last month. Tourism, domestic and inbound combined, accounts for roughly 5.6 per cent of Japan’s gross domestic product. Photo: Kyodo

Foreign tourists take selfies with a statue of Buddha in the Asakusa area of Tokyo in April. Last year, 42.7 million foreign visitors arrived in Japan, a record. Photo: Getty Images/TNS/AFP

Tourists stroll past sake barrels displayed at the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo. Japan is eyeing 60 million tourist arrivals a year by 2030. Photo: EPA

‘Chilling effect’: Japan’s whistle-blowers weigh high price of speaking out

The Shinjuku commercial, business and entertainment district in Tokyo, Japan, on August 17. Photo: EPA

Japan introduced its Whistleblower Protection Act in 2004 to protect workers who reported suspected misconduct. Photo: Shutterstock

This Week in Asia

Politics

News

Asia

East Asia

The fall of Yokohama’s mayor suggests the end of an era for local Japanese leaders treating staff and public funds with contempt


The fall of Yokohama’s mayor suggests the end of an era for local Japanese leaders treating staff and public funds with contempt.


Hiromi Murakami

Toshimitsu Shigemura

Bullying mayor ousted as Japan’s voters reject political abuse

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The fall of Yokohama’s mayor suggests the end of an era for local Japanese leaders treating staff and public funds with contempt

The fall of Yokohama’s mayor suggests the end of an era for local Japanese leaders treating staff and public funds with contempt