JAPANESE politics were thrown into turmoil yesterday when the upper house of parliament decisively defeated Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa's reform bills aimed at cleaning up political corruption.
In the immediate aftermath of the stunning setback, Mr Hosokawa refused to consider dissolving the parliament and calling a snap election, but instead will try once more to get the legislation passed.
The shock coalition defeat - by 130 votes to 118 - brought about primarily by socialist defections from within its own ranks, seems certain to further delay long-overdue measures to combat the protracted Japanese recession and increase tensions in relations with the United States.
Ironically, the shock defeat of the reform bills took place in the House of Councillors, where the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) first lost its majority five years ago, and where Mr Hosokawa's coalition enjoyed a 131 to 121 majority. The LDP has 99 seats out of the opposition's 121.
It was expected that yesterday's vote would be extremely close. The main danger to the coalition was the likely defection of leftist factions of the Socialist Party which, like some factions in the LDP, feel they will be the main losers from reform.
The most important of the reforms will change Japan's long-standing multi-member constituencies, each returning three, four or five members to the Diet, to 274 single-member seats plus a proportional representation system for a further 226 members.