OSAKA -- Attorney Seiichi Kato, 57, has announced he will run for Osaka governor in the April 1999 race, and called for drastic administrative reforms including privatization of many prefectural government jobs.
Kato, a member of the Liberal League, will seek the party's official nomination as well as broader support from other parties, he said Wednesday. In July, Kato lost in the Upper House elections over the Shiga prefectural constituency as the official candidate of the small political party.
He is the second candidate to enter the upcoming gubernatorial race after Makoto Ajisaka, a 65-year-old Kansai University philosophy professor backed by the Japanese Communist Party, announced his candidacy earlier this week.