It seems the honeymoon period for Yokohama’s IR dream never even began. On Wednesday, an organization opposing the city’s planned bid to develop an integrated resort called “Recall Starts With One Person” announced it would start collecting signatures on 5 October to have Mayor Fumiko Hayashi recalled.
The campaign will run for approximately two months, with the number of signatures needed for a referendum on her dismissal around 500,000.
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Another residents group in the city has also started a petition with the aim of a referendum on the IR bid itself.
At a press conference on Wednesday, “Recall Starts With One Person” said it had submitted the necessary documentation to the city’s election administration committee, allowing it to proceed with collecting signatures for their petition.
Yumiko Hirokoshi, the group’s representative, criticized Mayor Hayashi’s intention for an IR bid, saying, “I want to make Yokohama a place that can take good care of the people living here.”
The trigger for these groups is that Hayashi emphasized she was “undecided” on an IR project in the 2017 Yokohama mayoral elections, then proceeded to push for the IR bid after she was elected.
Yokohama is also the base of new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
