橋川渉

Wataru Hashikawa is a Japanese politician currently serving his fifth term as the Mayor of Kusatsu in Shiga Prefecture. Born in Fukui City, he graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University in 1973 and subsequently joined the Kusatsu City government, where he held various administrative roles including Director of Planning and Director of Policy Promotion. First elected mayor in 2008, he successfully campaigned on a platform that included securing the stop of new rapid trains at Minami-Kusatsu Station. Throughout his tenure, he has focused on local infrastructure and municipal management, and in 2020, he demonstrated fiscal leadership by returning a portion of his salary to support local COVID-19 countermeasures.