The scandal-hit nationalist Governor of Tokyo with a flair for provoking women, handicapped people and foreigners, secured a third consecutive term last night.

Shintaro Ishihara, who launched an abortive “war on crows” and once snorkelled around a remote islet in the Pacific to demonstrate that it was indeed Japanese territory, said last night that voters had used their common sense to overlook his many setbacks during eight years in office.

Numerous other local elections yesterday — regarded as a proxy confidence vote for Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister — threw up unexpectedly staunch support for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

The LDP informally backed 74-year-old Mr Ishihara, who, as Governor, has offended everyone from postmenopausal women to French speakers and had vowed to use his next four years to mount Tokyo’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. Well-publicised cost overruns in London’s preparations for the 2012 games mean that few support the goal.

But Mr Ishihara’s easy victory in yesterday’s gubernatorial election highlighted, some observers said, Japan’s continuing drift to the political right, and served as a major confidence boost for Mr Abe, Japan’s increasingly unpopular leader and himself an outspoken nationalist. That boost comes at a critical moment for Mr Abe, who faces his toughest few days in office this week as Japan hosts his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, in a visit regarded as make or break for the future of Sino-Japanese relations.

Others believe that the success of Mr Ishihara and the LDP highlights the relentless political decline of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Mr Ishihara’s main DPJ-backed competitor, Shiro Asano, was a distant second. His promise to undo an Ishihara-crafted law forcing teachers to stand for the national anthem, was not the vote-win-ner that he hoped it would be.

Late exit polls showed that the LDP secured three of the “big five” governor positions up for grabs last night: Tokyo, Hokkaido and Fukuoka. The DPJ was on course to secure Iwate and Kanagawa. Overall the LDP and its allies were set to secure nine of the thirteen prefectural governor positions.

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