The Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly has enacted a bylaw limiting a governor to three consecutive terms in office, or 12 years. It will not take effect, though, until the central government places a limit on the number of times a person can be elected as governor or mayor, by revising the Local Autonomy Law, for example.
This is the first such bylaw, although nine local autonomous bodies, including Saitama Prefecture and Tokyo's Suginami Ward, have bylaws calling on governors and mayors to voluntarily refrain from seeking re-election more than three times.
The idea of prohibiting a person from serving as governor for a number of terms is not new. The arrest last year of the Fukushima governor in his fifth term, in connection with a bid-rigging scandal, rekindled a call for such a prohibition. Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa of Kanagawa Prefecture, who proposed the bylaw, was re-elected last April for a second term on a political platform that included a proposed restriction.