When Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike was elected by a landslide in July, I don't think there were high hopes that she would take on the old-boy network of vested interests with such tenacity and verve. But she has defied expectations, exposing the seamy ways and means of a corrupt system run by the Liberal Democratic Party.
No wonder the party was so upset with her for deciding to run for office when they had already decided on a LDP candidate — a former bureaucrat who made a career out of understanding how to make that system work and not ruffling feathers by asking awkward questions. He represented the "Iron Triangle" — LDP, bureaucracy and big business — that is credited with Japan's postwar economic miracle, but is also synonymous with cozy and collusive relations that rig the system in favor of the powerful. It is a system of fleecing taxpayers and, like Abenomics, has an inherent bias that favors the wealthy.
The LDP-dominated Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly did not anticipate the damage Koike would cause. Since taking office, she has exposed the monumental waste of taxpayers' money, opaque decision-making and deeply flawed plans behind Tokyo's two high-profile public projects: the Tsukiji fish market relocation and the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
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