EXIT polls showed Okinawans voted against plans for a new US military base at Henoko in the Japanese prefecture today.

The vote is not legally binding on the Japanese government of Shinzo Abe, which has insisted the construction of the new US base will go ahead whether Okinawans want it or not.

But it will increase the pressure from peace campaigners and could see the Okinawan government pursue a number of options to delay or block construction, with landfill due to begin at the end of this year.

Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki was elected on a pledge to stop the base being built.

The child of a Japanese mother and a US marine who abandoned the family, he says his status is representative of the negative effect on the islands of the heavy US military presence.

The prefectural legislature is governed by a coalition of social democrats and the Japanese Communist Party, which calls for all US soldiers to be withdrawn from their country.

The US plans to build its base at Henoko in order to close down its existing Futenma base, which has been extraordinarily unpopular since the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl by US soldiers in 1995.

A US worker at the base was jailed in 2017 for the rape and murder of a local woman, while uproar also followed the death of a 61-year-old local man run over by a drunk US marine in the same year.

But peace campaigners want the US presence withdrawn rather than relocated.

“There are so many American troops here," pub landlord Tomomichi Shimabukuro told reporters ahead of the vote. “Most people are going to vote against in protest at the plan.”

Protests have included flotillas of kayaks seeking to block construction vessels.

Aside from peace activists opposed to the stationing of 50,000 US troops in Japan – which Washington sees as part of its ring of steel around its main global rival, China – environmentalists say building the base at Henoko will destroy rare corals and could lead to the local extinction of the dugong, a 10-foot sea cow which inhabits the area.