A referendum on the implementation of the Osaka Metropolis Plan was held in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

on 17 May 2015. In the event of a "yes" vote, the wards in

Osaka City is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2.7 ...

would be reorganized into

special wards are a special form of municipalities in Japan under the 1947 Local Autonomy Law. They are city-level wards: primary subdivisions of a prefecture with municipal autonomy largely comparable to other forms of municipalities. Although the autono ...

similar to those in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. The proposal was defeated by a slim margin of 10,741 votes (0.76%).The Japan Times, May 17, 2015
Hashimoto announces exit from politics after Osaka rejects merger plan in referendum
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Results

50.4% voted against the proposal.The Japan News (Yomiuri Shimbun), May 18, 2015
Osaka rejects city reform plan; Hashimoto to retire
/ref> 13 out of 24 Osaka wards voted "no". Interest on the referendum was particularly high. The turnout of 66.83% is 5.91% higher than the turnout in the 2011 mayoral and gubernatorial election.

Totals

By wards

Reactions to the result

After the defeat of the plan he had championed in the previous five years, Osaka Mayor

Toru Hashimoto TORU or Toru may refer to: *TORU, spacecraft system *Toru (given name), Japanese male given name *Toru, Pakistan, village in Mardan District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan *Tõru Tõru is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County in western Est ...

announced that he would retire from politics once his term expired in December 2015. A major shakeup also occurred in Hashimoto's

Japan Innovation Party The was a political party in Japan. It was launched on 22 September 2014, following the merger of the Japan Restoration Party headed by Tōru Hashimoto, and the Unity Party, led by Kenji Eda. On 27 March 2016 the party merged with the Democra ...

, with the leader

Kenji Eda is a Japanese politician and member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Okayama Prefecture and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in 1979, at ...

and secretary-general

Yorihisa Matsuno is a Japanese politician. He was a member of the Japan Restoration Association (JRA), and a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). On October 3, 2012, he was selected as the parliamentary leader of the JRA and ...

both announcing their resignation from their posts after the defeat. The referendum outcome was perceived as a blow to Prime Minister

Shinzo Abe Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 20 ...

, who had supported the plan despite opposition from the Osaka branch of his Liberal Democratic Party, hoping that the Innovation Party would in turn support his efforts to amend the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

.Asahi Shimbun, May 18, 2015
Defeat of Osaka referendum hurts Abe's constitutional revision strategy

References

{{Elections in Osaka Prefecture 2015 elections in Japan Elections in Osaka Prefecture Osaka Prefecture Referendums in Japan 2015 referendums May 2015 events in Japan Administrative division referendums