governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Yamagata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Yamagata Prefecture has a population of 1,079,950 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 9,325 km² (3,600 sq mi). Yamagata Prefecture borders Akita Prefecture to the north, ...

, Japan. She was elected on January 25, 2009. She defeated the sitting governor of

, Hiroshi Saitō in an upset. A native of

Ōe, Yamagata is a town located in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 7,894 in 2828 households, and a population density of 51 persons per km2. The total area of the town is . Geography Ōe is located in mountainous central ...

, she worked at a help-wanted advertising company before becoming a notary public for the city government of Yamagata. She soon became a member of Yamagata Prefecture's Education Committee before running for governor in 2008. She is Yamagata's first female governor and the sixth in Japanese history.

2009 Election

Yoshimura ran as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

. She received the support of the

Democratic Party of Japan The was a centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to centre-left liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic Part ...

(DPJ) and various Upper House members from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). This race was seen as an early indicator of the strength of the two main parties in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

before the

2009 Japanese general election General elections were held in Japan on August 30, 2009 to elect the 480 members of the House of Representatives. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) defeated the ruling coalition ( Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and New Komeito Party) ...

. Yoshimura's rival, Governor Hiroshi Saito, was supported by both the

New Komeito Party , formerly New Komeito and abbreviated NKP, is a conservative political party in Japan founded by lay members of the Buddhist Japanese new religious movement Soka Gakkai in 1964. Since 2012, it has served in government as the junior coalitio ...

and the majority of the LDP.

2021 Election

Yoshimura was re-elected as Governor for the third time, gaining more than 70% of the vote.山形知事に吉村氏４選　自民推薦の大内氏破る
– Kahoku Shinpo(01/26/2021)

References

* * Female Japanese governors People from Yamagata Prefecture 1951 births Living people Governors of Yamagata Prefecture {{Japan-politician-1950s-stub Politicians from Yamagata Prefecture