Osaka City Council Yoshimura was elected to the Osaka city council in 2011 as a member of the
Osaka Restoration Association headed by
Osaka Prefecture governor
Toru Hashimoto.
House of Representatives Yoshimura was elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in the
2014 general election as a member of the
Japan Innovation Party. He was a candidate in the
Osaka 4th district and lost in a close race with
LDP incumbent
Yasuhide Nakayama, but picked up a seat through the JIP proportional representation list. Yoshimura's tenure in the Diet was short. Following an unsuccessful
referendum in May 2015 to restructure the Osaka government, Toru Hashimoto announced his resignation as mayor of Osaka. In October, Hashimoto announced that he would transform the Osaka Restoration Association into a national party with about a dozen Diet members who had broken away from the JIP. On the same day, Yoshimura resigned from the House to run in the November 2015 election to replace Hashimoto. Hashimoto reportedly hand-picked Yoshimura to serve as his successor.
Mayor of Osaka Yoshimura was initially considered an underdog in his mayoral bid in the November 2015 "double election" for the governor of Osaka Prefecture and mayor of Osaka City. However, he won the election by a wide margin with former mayor Hashimoto's support. Yoshimura took office on 18 December 2015. At the beginning of his term, Yoshimura joined with the newly elected Osaka Prefecture governor
Ichiro Matsui to establish a joint office for the purpose of promoting Osaka as a "vice capital" of Japan, such as by hosting government agencies currently based in Tokyo. Yoshimura is a proponent of casino development in Osaka, and led a 2017 proposal to re-develop part of the Yumenoshima artificial island in Osaka Bay as a casino facility. In 2017, Yoshimura threatened to cancel Osaka's
sister city relationship with
San Francisco due to plans from a Chinese-American group to incorporate a statue of a
comfort woman in a San Francisco municipal park. In October 2018, he officially terminated Osaka's sister city relationship with San Francisco. He resigned from the post on 21 March 2019 to contest the Osaka Gubernatorial Election.
Governor of Osaka Yoshimura won the
Osaka gubernatorial election held in 2019. He was backed by Osaka Ishin. His opponent, Tadakazu Konishi, was backed by the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito.
Japan Innovation Party leader After
Nobuyuki Baba stepped down as leader of the
Japan Innovation Party in the wake of its poor showing in the
2024 Japanese general election, Yoshimura was elected party leader on 1 December, winning 80% of votes cast. He appointed
Seiji Maehara as co-leader, partially for Maehara to lead the Diet branch, as Yoshimura is based in Osaka. In 2025, he negotiated
a coalition agreement to provide confidence and supply to the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party. == References ==