The election of Denny Tamaki as the new governor of Okinawa Prefecture in Sunday's election makes it likely that the protracted standoff between the national government and Okinawa over the relocation of the U.S. Marine's Air Station Futenma to a new site in the prefecture will continue. Tamaki, a former opposition member of the Lower House, fought the campaign on the promise of carrying on the late former Gov. Takeshi Onaga's opposition to the construction of a Futenma replacement facility in the Henoko area of Nago in northern Okinawa. A continuation of the bitter confrontation between the government and the prefecture that hosts a bulk of the U.S. military bases in this country is not desirable. Both the new governor and the national government should pursue dialogue to explore a way to resolve the standoff.

The Okinawa election was moved up after Onaga's sudden death in August. Since being elected in 2014 on a platform of halting construction of the Futenma replacement facility in Henoko, Onaga sought to reverse the prefecture's approval of the national government's landfill work at the Henoko site that was given in 2013 by his predecessor, Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima. He maintained his opposition to the Henoko construction after losing a court battle with the government to invalidate the go-ahead for the landfill — until he died of cancer a few months before his four-year term was to end. Following his death, the prefecture withdrew its permission for the landfill on grounds of illegality in the procedure, again putting the construction work on hold.

Despite opposition from Okinawa Prefecture, the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reiterated that relocation to the site off the Henoko coast is the only solution to removing the dangers posed by the Futenma base — which is located in the middle of the residential area of the central Okinawa city of Ginowan — while maintaining the deterrence created by the presence of U.S. Marines in Okinawa — and went ahead with the construction. Onaga, meanwhile, maintained his opposition to the relocation to Henoko on the basis of the popular will in Okinawa as manifested in his 2014 election win. But as the standoff with the national government over the Futenma relocation issue became protracted, the incumbent mayor of Nago, who campaigned against the relocation to Henoko, was defeated by a candidate backed by Abe's ruling coalition in February.