The word 'prefectural' is correct and usable in written English.
It is an adjective usually used to describe something related to a prefecture, which is an administrative district of certain countries in South and East Asia. For example: "The prefectural police were able to quickly solve the crime."
Around 9,500 people remain unaccounted for in the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi Prefecture, say prefectural officials more than half of the population of the coastal town.
There will be polls to pick governors in 12 prefectures as well as members for 44 (out of 47) prefectural governments, along with mayoral and local-assembly elections in over 2,000 towns and cities.
It failed to gain a plurality in any of 41 prefectural and municipal assemblies that were up for grabs.
The party lost all three of its races for prefectural governorships to the LDP.
Business groups and foreign investors also complain of prefectural voting disparities as a factor holding back structural reform of Japan's economy: rural folk are more averse to change than are city dwellers.Locals are well aware of voting disparities.
Prefectural governors, including those who originally supported nuclear power, are having second thoughts.
Voters are breaking old habits not just in mayoral and prefectural polls, but also in those for the Diet, where anti-LDP independents are on the rise.
Mr Nishioka's proposal (as leader of the house, he says he is non-partisan) is to scrap the prefectural system, and replace it with proportional representation in nine supersized voting areas.
The Union of Kansai Governments, a group headed by the seven prefectural governors, believes that energy savings of 5-10% arenoughgh.
So the party elders are pushing to restrict the vote to the parliamentary party, plus one representative from each of the 47 prefectural chapters.
The prefectural government says that two-fifths has been cleared in Miyagi, and that in total there was the equivalent of 23 years of "general waste".
