TOKYO: An anti-nuclear Japanese governor stepped down on Wednesday after a magazine alleged he paid university students for sex, a resignation that could boost the government’s plan to restart the country’s mothballed reactors.
Ryuichi Yoneyama was elected governor of Niigata prefecture in 2016 on a pledge to prevent the restarting of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power station, the world’s biggest nuclear plant, about 200-km northwest of Tokyo.
His unexpected victory, in which he narrowly beat a government-supported candidate, posed a challenge for the pro-nuclear policy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Yoneyama, a 50-year-old unmarried doctor and lawyer, paid women in their 20s to have sex, according to the Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine.
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