Japanese woman living in Belgium wins Tokyo mayoral election

A Japanese woman living in Belgium has been elected as mayor of a district in Tokyo after coming to prominence through her online campaigning during the Covid pandemic.

47-year-old Satoko Kishimoto, who has lived in the Belgian city of Leuven with her husband and children for a decade, is now mayor of Suginami city, a ward of 500,000 people, more than 5,800 miles away from her home.

Kishimoto works as a project coordinator for the not-for-profit Transnational Institute in Amsterdam but had travelled to Japan to campaign in person in recent weeks.

Kishimoto’s husband, Olivier Hoedeman, said the election result had nevertheless come as a “huge surprise” and they were not yet committed to moving to Japan as their youngest son is still in secondary school.