The former Governor of Tokyo Shunichi Suzuki died last Friday, according to several sources. As well as overseeing the relocation of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government complex to Shinjuku from the government district of Chiyoda in 1991, the four term governor (1979-1995) also laid the foundations of Japan’s post-war system of local autonomy as an official of its interior ministry, working on its local autonomy act, the local finance act and the public offices election act. As Tokyo’s vice governor he was also responsible for the staging of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. He was 99.
