is a Japanese politician currently serving as the Governor of

Osaka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture ...

. He assumed office in April 2019. He has been described as a

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Early life

Yoshimura was born in the Osaka suburb of

Kawachinagano is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 101,649 in 47493 households and a population density of 930 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Kawachinagano is located in the sout ...

. He studied law at

Kyushu University , abbreviated to , is a Japanese national university located in Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu. It was the 4th Imperial University in Japan, ranked as 4th in 2020 Times Higher Education Japan University Rankings, one of the top 10 Design ...

, graduating in 1998. He passed the Japanese bar examination later that year and was admitted to practice as an attorney in 2000, at the age of 25. After working for several years under Tokyo-based attorney Shintaro Kumagai ( 熊谷信太郎), Yoshimura returned to Osaka and co-founded the Star Law Office in 2005. He remains a partner in the firm as of 2017.

Political career

Osaka City Council

Yoshimura was elected to the Osaka city council in 2011 as a member of the

Osaka Restoration Association The , also referred to as One Osaka, is a regional political party in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Founded in 2010 by then-Governor Tōru Hashimoto, its main platform is pursuing the Osaka Metropolis plan of merging the prefecture and some of its ci ...

headed by

governor

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 ...

House of Representatives

Yoshimura was elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in the 2014 general election as a member of the

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 Democrati ...

. He was a candidate in the

Osaka 4th district , the House of Representatives of Japan is elected from a combination of multi-member districts and single-member districts, a method called Parallel voting. Currently, 176 members are elected from 11 multi-member districts (called proportional r ...

and lost in a close race with LDP incumbent

Yasuhide Nakayama is a Japanese politician who served as the Senior Vice Minister of Defense of Japan. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), he was elected in December 2012 as a member of the House of Representatives of Japan and re-elected in the Dece ...

, but picked up a seat through the JIP proportional representation list. Yoshimura's tenure in the Diet was short. Following an unsuccessful referendum in May 2015 to restructure the Osaka government, Toru Hashimoto announced his resignation as mayor of Osaka. In October, Hashimoto announced that he would transform the Osaka Restoration Association into a national party with about a dozen Diet members who had broken away from the JIP. On the same day, Yoshimura resigned from the House to run in the November 2015 election to replace Hashimoto. Hashimoto reportedly hand-picked Yoshimura to serve as his successor.

Mayor of Osaka

Yoshimura was initially considered an underdog in his mayoral bid in the November 2015 "double election" for the governor of Osaka Prefecture and mayor of Osaka City. However, he won the election by a wide margin with former mayor Hashimoto's support. In the final tally, he won 596,045 votes versus 406,595 for runner-up Akira Yanagimoto, who was supported by Prime Minister

Shinzo Abe Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍晋三, Hepburn romanization, 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 (Japan), President of the Lib ...

and the LDP. Yoshimura took office on 18 December 2015. At the beginning of his term, Yoshimura joined with the newly elected Osaka Prefecture governor Ichiro Matsui to establish a joint office for the purpose of promoting Osaka as a "vice capital" of Japan, such as by hosting government agencies currently based in Tokyo. Yoshimura is a proponent of casino development in Osaka, and led a 2017 proposal to re-develop part of the Yumenoshima artificial island in Osaka Bay as a casino facility. In 2017, Yoshimura threatened to cancel Osaka's

sister city A sister city or a twin town relationship is a form of legal or social agreement between two geographically and politically distinct localities for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties. While there are early examples of inter ...

relationship with

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

due to plans from a Chinese-American group to incorporate a statue of a

comfort woman Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '':ja: ...

in a San Francisco municipal park. In October 2018, he officially terminated Osaka's sister city relationship with San Francisco. He resigned from the post on 21 March 2019 to contest the Osaka Gubernatorial Election.

Governor of Osaka

Yoshimura won the Osaka gubernatorial election held in 2019. He was backed by Osaka Ishin. His opponent, Tadakazu Konishi, was backed by the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshimura, Hirofumi 1975 births Living people Japanese politicians Kyushu University alumni Mayors of Osaka Japanese municipal councilors Politicians from Osaka Prefecture People from Yokohama People from Kawachinagano Historical revisionism