Japanese Parliament Panel OKs Political Reform Package : Elections: Bills backed by ruling coalition would redesign voting districts, alter campaign financing.

Japan’s ruling coalition pushed an anti-corruption political reform package through a key parliamentary committee Tuesday, opening the door for likely passage this year of laws redesigning key aspects of the country’s political system.

The set of four bills, passed on a 21-19 vote, attacks the endemic corruption of Japanese politics in two ways: by redesigning voting districts and by changing the rules for campaign financing.

The legislation also would dilute the power of rural voters, long accustomed to carrying political weight far beyond their numbers. The farm vote was a mainstay of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) during its recently ended 38-year grip on power.

Action on political reform was the key campaign pledge of the seven-party coalition that came to power in August. Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa pledged then to enact reform by the end of this year, implicitly promising to either step down or call fresh elections should he fail.

Tuesday’s party-line vote in a special political reform committee of the lower house of Parliament came after Hosokawa and LDP President Yohei Kono met for two hours, starting around midnight Monday, in a final attempt to agree on a compromise that both sides could support. The government and the Liberal Democrats had proposed political reform bills that were structurally similar but differed in key details.

Hosokawa, who heads the fragile seven-party coalition, had said that he wanted to avoid forcing the bills through Parliament without the opposition’s support. While Parliament is structured on a majority-rule system, traditional notions of consensus politics still play a role in its actual functioning.

The decision to press forward with the committee vote, coupled with a pledge to pass the bills through the lower house this week, indicates that the government has abandoned its attempt to win Liberal Democratic support for the package.

LDP Secretary General Yoshiro Mori told reporters Tuesday evening that the party will continue to fight for amendments when the bills are presented to the upper house. The government is aiming for final passage of the bills by Dec. 15, the end of Parliament’s session.

A key element of the reform package changes the way of electing members of the lower house of Parliament, the more powerful of its two chambers. The current system of multi-seat voting districts would give way to a combination of 274 single-seat districts and 226 seats filled by proportional representation based on a nationwide party-preference vote.

Under the multi-seat system, a strong party often would field two or more candidates in the same district, while a relatively weak party might still be able to win one seat. Critics say this has encouraged undue emphasis on personalities and illicit vote-buying.

In single-seat districts, minor party candidates usually have no chance to win, and major parties hurt their chances if they field more than one candidate. Countries with pure single-seat systems tend to develop two-party systems.

But through the proportional system, the reform package provides representation for small parties as well--and the ruling coalition consists entirely of smaller parties. Voters will cast two ballots--one for their local representative and another stating party preference. The preference vote will then be tallied on a nationwide basis, and seats will be assigned proportionally based on name lists submitted by the parties.

Under other provisions of the package:

* Donations to individual politicians would be banned.

* Businesses and other organizations would be allowed to make donations to political parties or their fund-raising organizations, but sources of donations exceeding 50,000 yen ($467) would have to be disclosed.

* A total of 30.9 billion yen ($290 million) would be provided by the government to political parties for campaign expenses.

* New electoral districts would be drawn by an independent body set up under the prime minister’s office. This redistricting is expected to shift some political power from rural to urban areas.

Getting the political reform bill through the lower house before he leaves Friday for this weekend’s Asian-Pacific summit in Seattle could reinforce Hosokawa politically both in his meetings with President Clinton and in facing other domestic problems when he returns home.

Political reform has had priority over economic issues during Hosokawa’s first 100 days in office, but the focus could shift once this issue is resolved. Other key items on Hosokawa’s political agenda include an income tax cut aimed at invigorating Japan’s recession-bound economy, and the politically sensitive issue of whether to yield to U.S. demands for the opening of Japan’s rice market.