Showdown Vote Will Decide Political Reforms in Japan

Despite threats of a rebellion among its own supporters, Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa’s coalition Thursday decided to put to a final vote today four political reform bills that would overturn Japan’s post-World War II political structure.

Rejection of the bills, on which Hosokawa has staked his political future, in the upper house of Parliament would undermine Hosokawa’s power to act on a host of other issues, including conclusion of yearlong negotiations with the United States to establish a framework for U.S.-Japan economic issues.

Hosokawa, who said last August that he would “assume political responsibility” if the reforms failed to pass, is scheduled to visit Washington Feb. 11-13 to wind up the “framework talks” with President Clinton.

With party discipline cracking on both sides in the upper house, the historic vote will mark the first time that representatives cast ballots without the outcome being known in advance. Hosokawa described the showdown as dangerous.

Excluding the Speaker of the 252-member upper house, who does not vote, 126 votes are needed for passage.

Although the coalition counts 131 members in its ranks, leaders fear that as many as 16 Socialists will vote against the bills or boycott the balloting. A rebellion is also expected within the Liberal Democratic Party, which opposes the bills.

The Liberal Democrats’ 38-year grasp on power ended last July.

The reforms would wipe out a lower house election system in which an average of four representatives are chosen by voters casting only one ballot in multi-seat districts. Candidates are sometimes elected with 20% or fewer of the votes cast.

Under the proposed reforms, voters would cast one ballot for a representative in single-seat districts, filling 274 seats, and a second ballot for the party of their choice to fill 226 proportional representation seats.

The weight of rural votes, which is often three times that of urban votes, would also be reduced to a ratio of 2 to 1, on average.

Corporate and union donations, which have been blamed as the root of widespread corruption, would be forbidden to individual politicians.

Under the system now, battles in multi-seat districts among politicians of the same party reduce lower house campaigns to personality contests. National issues and foreign policy are seldom mentioned.

Hosokawa’s struggle to win approval of the reforms came to a head Thursday as a Liberal Democrat defied his party and cast a vote in committee to send the package to the floor of the upper house.

With the move by Tomoichi Hoshino, who said he will resign from the party today, the bills passed by a vote of 18-16.