Japan Reforms Win Preliminary Approval
TOKYO — By an 18-16 vote, an upper house committee in Japan’s Parliament today passed four political reform bills on which Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa has staked his political future.
One member of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party defied his party and voted for the bills.
Final passage on the upper house floor was endangered by a rebellion within Hosokawa’s coalition.
Last August, Hosokawa promised to assume “political responsibility†should he fail to enact the reforms that would give Japan a completely new election system and ban corporate contributions to individual politicians.
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