Tōru Hashimoto (橋下 徹, Hashimoto Tōru; born 29 June 1969) is a Japanese television personality, former politician, and lawyer. He is a former governor of Osaka Prefecture and mayor of City of Osaka. He is a founder of Nippon Ishin no Kai and the Osaka Restoration Association. He is one of Japan's leading right-wing conservative-populist politicians.
Tōru Hashishita was born in Hatagaya, Shibuya, Tokyo, on 29 June 1969. His father, who was a yakuza, died when he was in the second grade of elementary school. Soon after, his mother changed the reading of their name to Hashimoto. Hashimoto and his mother and sister moved to Suita, Osaka when he was in the fifth grade, and then to Higashiyodogawa-ku, Osaka the next year.
As a student at Osaka Prefectural Kitano High School, Hashimoto played in the National High School Rugby Tournament as a member of the school rugby team, which was one of three champions from the Osaka prefectural tournament. He failed the entrance exams for Waseda University twice but was admitted after an additional year of study. He graduated from Waseda in the spring of 1994 and passed the bar examination later that year, becoming a lawyer in 1996. In 1998, he established the Hashimoto Law Office, where he built up a practice in corporate law, entertainment law and dispute resolution. Hashimoto remains an equity partner in the firm, but converted it to a professional corporation in 2008 and currently does not take an active role in its management. He also became the legal advisor for the brothel association of Tobita Shinchi for a period of time.
During his early years of law practice, he began to appear on local radio and television programs in the Kansai area. He made several appearances on TV Asahi's Super Morning program, after which American TV personality Dave Spector, who also regularly appeared on the show, sent tapes of Hashimoto's appearances to TV producers at other networks. Hashimoto's most high-profile TV role came in April 2003 when he started participating in the popular prime-time program Gyōretsu no Dekiru Hōritsu Sōdanjo (行列のできる法律相談所; "The Legal Advisory Office that People Queue Up For", NTV), hosted by comedian Shinsuke Shimada, as part of the regular panel of four lawyers. He appeared on the show until December 2007. Hashimoto also guested on Nippon TV's Hikari Ota's If I Were Prime Minister... Secretary Tanaka, where he "proposed" homeowners should open their curtains every afternoon.
He admitted in 2012 to having an extramarital affair with a club hostess between 2006 and 2008, while still a television personality, saying that "I wasn't a saint before I became governor."
There were rumours that Hashimoto would run for Mayor of Osaka City in 2007, because of his popularity and status as a lawyer, but he did not do so and, even after Fusae Ohta announced that she would retire as Governor of Osaka Prefecture after finishing her second term, he initially said that he had no intention to run for governor either. However, on 12 December 2007, after he had received pledges of support from the local Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito, he announced that he would run in the gubernatorial race. He took 54% of votes in the election on 27 January 2008 and assumed the post of governor on 6 February 2008. In 2010, he founded the Osaka Restoration Association (One Osaka), a new regional political party with a platform centered around the Osaka Metropolis plan. Shortly after his inauguration as Osaka governor, Hashimoto declared a "fiscal emergency" in the prefecture and proposed massive budget cuts.
For a time, his straight-talking style and perceived willingness to challenge the status quo made him one of the most popular political figures in Japan. His party, Osaka Ishin no Kai, received high support ratings in national polls despite its regional focus. In April 2011, the party also won a majority in the Osaka prefectural assembly.
His Osaka Metropolis plan faced fierce opposition from other politicians, including then Osaka City Mayor Kunio Hiramatsu. Hashimoto resigned as governor of Osaka on 31 October 2011, before finishing his first term, in order to run for Osaka city mayor. In November he was elected as mayor, alongside Ichirō Matsui of One Osaka who succeeded him as governor.
During the election campaign, weekly magazines Shukan Shincho, Shukan Bunshun and Shincho45, published articles which refer to his father's criminal record and burakumin origin. Hashimoto criticized the articles on Twitter.
After the election, Hashimoto founded the Ishin Seiji Juku, a cram school for training future political leaders, which admitted 2,000 students in its first class in March 2012.
In 2012 a poll of civil servants working in Ōsaka city was conducted, requiring disclosure of those with tattoos on their body. The survey found 110 employees out of 33,500 had at least one tattoo. Hashimoto commented that civil servants have no right to have tattoos and suggested that those who do should resign. Inciting further controversy, 2 July 2012 Hashimoto made the comment to newly appointed ward mayors of Ōsaka that civil servants cannot expect to have personal privacy or fundamental human rights while working for the public.
In September 2012, he launched Nippon Ishin No Kai, or the Japan Restoration Association, a national extension of the Osaka Ishin no Kai. It was the first national political party that was based in Osaka rather than Tokyo, and achieved party status by winning the support of seven sitting diet members.
The Osaka Ishin no Kai suffered several setbacks in 2013, with its candidate losing the Sakai mayoral election in September, and the party losing its majority in the prefectural assembly in December 2013 after four members defected over the sale of the government's stake in Osaka Prefectural Urban Development, the operator of the Semboku Rapid Railway.
In the wake of controversial comments about comfort women (see below) and after failing to gain consensus for his plan to merge Osaka City and Osaka Prefecture, Hashimoto announced his resignation as mayor in February 2014, and said he would stand for re-election to seek a new mandate from voters.
Osaka voted down the Osaka Metropolis plan by a thin margin in a May 2015 referendum. Following the defeat of his core policy proposal, which had been supported by the national government, Hashimoto announced that he would retire from politics upon expiration of his term as mayor which he formally left later in December of the following year. In June, he was invited to Tokyo for a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who voiced his support for the defeated plan and also sought Hashimoto's input on upcoming national security legislation.
Hashimoto's political agenda planned the privatization of the municipal transport sector (subways, bus services and peripheral bus lines), waterworks, hospitals, and trash collection. It included the reduction of the city staffing from 21,600 units in 2012 to 19,350 by 2015. The electoral program of the Ishin no Kai proposed to cut funding to classical orchestras, the bunraku (the national puppet theatre) and to the Osaka Human Rights Museum, and legalizing gambling as a new way to generate revenue.
In 2008, Hashimoto reduced the wages of public school teachers as well as the public contribution directed to the private schools. In 2013, he forced the majority of the Osaka's schools to make scholastic ability test rankings public in order to promote the role of the private sector, the competition between schools and school operators and the use of quantitative methods of evaluation. This approach applied a political control on the education, two areas that had been traditionally kept separated after the Second World War.
He is known for his opposition to the restarting of local nuclear reactors after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. According to The New York Times, this led him to become Japan's best-liked politician in polls during early 2012. Hashimoto and several other leaders eventually agreed to a limited restart of the Ōi Nuclear Power Plant in 2012.