Kagoshima gubernatorial election, 2016
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| Turnout | 776,890 (56.77%) | ||||||||||||||||||
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The 2016 Kagoshima Prefecture gubernatorial election was held on 10 July 2016 and contested by the three-term incumbent Yuichiro Ito and political journalist Satoshi Mitazono. Ito was denied a fourth term in office, as Mitazono received 55% of the vote following a campaign based primarily on change as well as opposition to the prefecutre's operating nuclear power plant. The election was held on the same day as the national House of Councillors election, which helped increase voter turnout to 58.6%, compared to 43.8% at the previous election in 2012.
Yuichiro Ito was first elected to the office of governor in a four-candidate race in July 2004, in which the 79-year-old incumbent Tatsuro Suga did not seek re-election. He was re-elected with a large majority in the 2008 and 2012 elections.
In 2013 Ito suffered a loss of popularity when he formulated a plan to send prefectural employees for training in Shanghai using public funds, in order to maintain the viability of China Eastern Airlines' failing Kagoshima-Shanghai route. This and concerns about other local issues, including construction of a large-scale sports arena and an industrial waste disposal plant, led to the launch of an official petition in October 2013 seeking Ito's recall. In response the prefecture set up a website explaining the government policy behind decisions made on each of the issues, and the petition ultimately did not receive the required number of signatures during the two-month collection period.
In November 2014 Ito approved the restart of the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant, which was shut down following the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. This paved the way for the restart of two of the plant's reactors in August and October 2015, the first in the country to be restarted and the only reactors in operation at the time of the election. Local consent to the restart was also given by the Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly and the Satsumasendai city assembly, where the plant is located. The decision was met with protests locally and on a national level, with disruption caused at the prefectural assembly at the time of the vote and former Prime Minister Naoto Kan rallying protestors outside the plant at the time the first reactor was restarted. A series of earthquakes in neighbouring Kumamoto Prefecture in April 2016 caused further concerns about the plant's safety.
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