“I would like to focus on my role as governor,” she told reporters Monday at Tomin First’s office in Shinjuku Ward.

In local politics, the governor and the assembly are elected separately as part of a system of checks and balances in which the assembly’s role is to keep tabs on the governor, who traditionally runs as an independent. During this election, however, Koike broke with tradition by agreeing to serve as president of her fledgling party to solidify its identity and lure more voters. Critics said that would undermine the assembly’s ability to keep Koike in check.

Kazusa Noda, Tomin First’s secretary-general, was the party’s leader before Koike took over on June 1.

Tomin First proved wildly successful in Sunday’s election, with 49 of its 50 candidates winning seats, up drastically from its pre-election strength of six. It is now the largest party in the 127-seat assembly.

The Liberal Democratic Party, meanwhile, was handed its worst defeat ever, falling to just 23 seats after starting out with 57, bringing it even with Komeito.

Koike said she was considering offering Tomin First membership to six independents who won with its support, which could boost its total to 55.

Commenting on the historic win, Koike said, “I will take responsibility as a representative of the public … and want to commit to creating a reliable administration.”

The former environment minister denied having any intention to return to national politics but said she hoped to maintain good relations with members of other parties at the national level.

“Close cooperation between Tokyo and the central government is essential and in the best interest of Tokyo citizens” to ensure the success of the 2020 Olympic Games and successfully turn Tokyo into a global financial hub, Koike said.

She also vowed to improve transparency, particularly when it comes to the city’s preparations for the Olympics, which were hatched by the LDP.

Koike said she plans to review the budget with consideration for the challenges faced by Tokyo’s aging population, and to foster public engagement in governing through her private political school Kibo no Juku (School of Hope), which opened last fall.

She also explained plans to cooperate closely with other municipalities to address such issues as education, nursing care and child care support.

Now that the election is over, Koike said her focus will shift to hammering out the details of the plan for moving the Tsukiji fish market, and to preparations for the Olympics.

On Sunday, Koike criticized the LDP for having too much influence in the assembly, which she claimed had hindered reform.

Information from Kyodo added

 

But after his conservative Liberal Democratic Party’s crushing defeat in Sunday’s Tokyo assembly election, Abe’s iron grip on power has finally shown signs of slipping — a setback critics say is the biggest crisis he has faced since his sweeping return to power in December 2012.

“This is a very stern rebuke from the public that we must do some serious soul-searching about,” NHK showed a grim-faced Abe telling reporters at his Tokyo office Monday morning.

“It’s been five years since this administration kicked off, and I believe the public has sent us a tough message that we have lost our discipline,” he said.

Although Tokyo assembly elections have often served as a harbinger of national trends, there is no immediate danger of the Abe administration disintegrating, as the next Lower House election isn’t scheduled until next year. Experts say the LDP’s shattering defeat hardly leaves Abe in the mood to call a snap election anytime soon, either.

But the results bode ill for the prime minister nonetheless and point to the “beginning of the end of Abe’s invincibility,” according to Norihiko Narita, a political science professor at Surugadai University.

Sunday’s election saw Abe’s LDP lose big to a fledgling party headed by the capital’s popular governor, Yuriko Koike. Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First), as it is called, trounced the LDP by capturing 49 seats in the 127-member assembly. The tally, if combined with seats won by its allies, including Komeito, gives the pro-Koike forces a comfortable majority in the assembly at 79 seats.

The outcome left the LDP tied with Komeito at 23 seats, followed by the Japanese Communist Party with 19, and the Democratic Party with five.

Asked about factors that may have contributed to the LDP’s rout, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the “lost discipline” of the Abe administration and a recent string of “inappropriate remarks” by LDP lawmakers likely fueled voter anger.

In March, the LDP rubber-stamped a historic rule change to extend the maximum tenure of its president to nine years, up from six, in what was seen as a move to enable a third term for Abe that would continue through 2021.

Such a scenario would mean that Abe, who served previously as prime minister from 2006 to 2007, would be remembered as the longest-serving leader in modern Japan, topping Taro Katsura, who held the office for a combined 2,886 days before dying in 1913.

But Sunday’s trouncing has “clouded the prospect of a third term,” Narita said.

It also places a big question mark over Abe’s recently announced timeline for revising the pacifist Constitution by 2020. His goal is to alter war-renouncing Article 9 to make explicit the status of the Self-Defense Forces.

Abe’s sudden mention of a deadline and the unconventional ways in which he said he would go about legalizing the SDF caused murmurs of discord among his rivals in the LDP, such as Shigeru Ishiba, who argued the prime minister’s methods were riding roughshod over his party’s previous internal policies.

When he was riding high, Abe couldn’t have cared less about these voices of discontent, but now “it’s not clear whether he can push ahead with his agenda, given an expected rise in momentum within the LDP for questioning his power,” Narita said.

Speculation is also rife that Abe will attempt to engineer a make-or-break image makeover, perhaps starting this month, by overhauling his scandal-tainted Cabinet and ousting Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, who violated her obligation to stay politically neutral by hinting that the SDF backed an LDP-backed candidate.

But a failure to check the background of her replacement or other new faces would risk the possibility of further scandals, which would be a recipe for disaster, Narita said.

Katsuyuki Yakushiji, a professor of political science at Toyo University, said the metropolitan assembly election not only debunked the notion of Abe’s invincibility, but also exposed an uncomfortable truth.

With the main opposition Democratic Party so hopelessly unpopular, Abe had faced no real enemy until Sunday’s election. But when confronted with a powerful alternative in the person of Koike, the fragility of his popularity was made painfully clear.

“When there is no real alternative to the LDP, you either refuse to vote or begrudgingly vote for the LDP,” Yakushiji said. “Abe mistook these votes as positive support for his party, which emboldened him into going ahead with all these controversial policies, such as revising the Constitution.”

All eyes are now on whether Tomin First’s overwhelming victory will facilitate a foray by Koike into national politics — and ultimately her widely rumored bid to become Japan’s first female prime minister.

Asked Monday about the possibility of returning to national politics, Koike ruled out the idea. Observers, too, are playing it down, saying the fact she is Tokyo governor means she is unlikely to flirt with national politics anytime soon. Doing so, they say, would be taken as a betrayal of Tokyo’s residents that would send her popularity plummeting.

“She is not stupid enough to do that,” Yakushiji said.

Reports say some prominent lawmakers, including Koike protege Masaru Wakasa and ex-DP member Akihisa Nagashima, are thinking about founding a new “pro-Koike” party at the national level.

But Koike’s absence from such a party, coupled with the fact that no national election is scheduled in the immediate future, means the impact of such a move would likely be limited, Narita said.

“She’s a very ambitious person, so I’m sure she wants to be prime minister someday,” he said. “But at the same time, she’s also determined not to miss the honor of presiding over Tokyo as it hosts the Olympics and Paralympics in 2020. Her current term is set to expire right before the games, so she has to run for a second term as governor. There are still years to go.”

North Korean state-run television said the missile, known as the Hwasong-14, reached an altitude of 2,800 km and hit a target after flying 933 km. It said the test had been overseen by leader Kim Jong Un.

State-run TV said the launch — which came as Americans prepared to mark Independence Day in the U.S. — was of “a very powerful ICBM that can strike any place in the world” and was “a major breakthrough in the history of our country.”

The numbers reported by state media were in line with projections by Japan’s Defense Ministry, which said the missile, launched from North Korea’s west coast, flew for about 40 minutes.

The launch, which occurred at around 9:39 a.m., was conducted on a steep “lofted” trajectory, according to a high-ranking Japanese official.

The U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement ahead of the announcement that it had detected and tracked the launch of what it called an “intermediate range ballistic missile” near Panghyon Airfield in North Pyongan Province, near the border with China.

“The missile was tracked for 37 minutes and landed in the Sea of Japan,” the statement said. Tokyo said it had landed in its exclusive economic zone.

According to the North’s report, the lofted launch had been conducted “in consideration of neighboring nations” — a statement usually seen as referring to Japan.

Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said Japan was “analyzing” the North’s ICBM claims.

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe railed against Pyongyang over its latest in a string of missile tests.

“North Korea again dared to launch a ballistic missile, ignoring repeated warnings from the international community,” Abe told reporters at the Prime Minister’s Office.

“The missile launch this time has clearly shown that the (North Korean) threat has further increased,” Abe said.

Abe said he will meet U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meetings scheduled to kick off July 7 in Hamburg, Germany. Abe plans to depart Japan on Wednesday to attend G-20 events.

Together with the U.S. and South Korea, he said Japan would join the international community in piling even more pressure on the North.

“I will also ask (Chinese) President Xi Jinping and (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin to respond in a more constructive way,” he added.

David Wright, co-director of the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said that if the time and distance are correct, the missile could have a possible maximum range of 6,700 km — a range that would put Alaska in striking distance of the North if fired at a normal trajectory.

“Technically, an ICBM is considered any missile with a range greater than 5,500 km, so if this range estimate is right, this would be considered an ICBM,” Wright told The Japan Times. “It would still fall short of reaching the lower 48 states, however.”

Doubts remain about whether the North has mastered the technology needed to mount a small enough nuclear warhead onto the tip of a long-range missile. There are also questions over any warhead’s ability to survive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

But the threat of a nuclear-tipped long-range North Korean missile that could threaten U.S. cities is likely to stoke alarm in Tokyo.

Experts say such a feat could play into the hands of Pyongyang as it seeks to divide U.S. allies in the region.

“North Korea’s objective is to split the alliances and decouple the U.S. from its allies in East Asia,” said Daniel Pinkston, an East Asia expert at Troy University in Seoul.

“Any North Korean theory of victory in a military conflict on the peninsula would require the exclusion of U.S. participation in the conflict,” Pinkston said. “North Korea has been trying to effect a U.S. withdrawal from East Asia through diplomacy for decades. Now they have another instrument they could employ to try to prevent U.S. intervention in support of its treaty allies.”

But while Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear successes may prompt Japan to wonder if Washington would be willing to sacrifice Tokyo for Los Angeles in any nuclear exchange, Pinkston said it was important to remember the view from North Korea as well.

“It cuts both ways,” he said. “People need to ask the North Korean leadership if they want to sacrifice their whole country for Los Angeles.”

Earlier, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga lambasted the launch as a “clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.”

Japan will “never tolerate repeated provocations” by the North, which has continued to test-fire dozens of ballistic missiles in recent years as they seek more precise launches,” Suga told a news conference.

“We’ve filed strong protest” against the launch with the North Korean government, he added.

Japan’s Coast Guard also issued a warning for ships in the Sea of Japan, urging them not to approach any possible North Korean missile wreckage.

Trump had said early this year that Pyongyang’s quest to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States would not happen on his watch.

Late Monday night in Washington, Trump blasted Kim on Twitter over the latest test-firing, asking: “Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?”

The U.S. leader also appeared to say in a series of tweets that Tokyo and Seoul had reached the limits of their patience, while also continuing to urge Beijing to heap pressure on Pyongyang.

“Hard to believe that South Korea and Japan will put up with this much longer,” he wrote. “Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!”

Trump has pinned much of his administration’s North Korea strategy on China, though he has in recent days appeared to distance himself from this policy.

Beijing slammed Tuesday’s launch as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“Related UNSC resolutions have clear rules on North Korea’s ballistic missile technology and activities of (ballistic missile) launches,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.

“China opposes North Korea’s continuation of (ballistic missile) activities in violation of these rules,” he added.

Geng also urged Pyongyang “not to come in breach of UNSC resolutions again and fulfill the pre-conditions for resuming talks.”

The test was the North’s 13th missile launch of the year, according to data compiled by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California.

Shea Cotton, a researcher at the center, said Tuesday’s test was likely deliberately timed to coincide with Independence Day in the United States.

“It’s already 4th of July in North Korea,” he wrote on Twitter. “I somewhat suspect they’re shooting off some fireworks today specifically because of that.”

Media reports last month citing unidentified U.S. officials said that the North had carried out a rocket engine test that the United States believed could be part of its program to develop a long-range missile. The reports said Washington had assessed that the test could be for the smallest stage of an ICBM.

In March, North Korea heralded the successful development of a new, indigenously built “high-thrust engine.” In an ominous warning, Kim appeared to indicate that this test was of an engine for a long-range rocket.

“The whole world will soon witness what eventful significance the great victory won today carries,” state media quoted Kim as saying at the time.

In September, the North also announced a successful ground test of what experts said was its most powerful engine to date.