JAPANESE politicians have made the first tentative moves towards reaching a compromise over the political reforms ditched by the upper House of Councillors in a shock government defeat on Friday.
But little time is left for the complicated political manoeuvres that the reform bills require if they are to be passed in some form in the current session of the Diet, which had to end on Saturday.
Already there are concerns about the international implications of the political turmoil and fears that the summit between Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa and US President Bill Clinton will inevitably be aborted.
Amid a flurry of media criticism, pressure is mounting on the politicians.
The Yomiuri Shimbun declared at the weekend: ''A political system that cannot reform itself is certain to lose face in the international community. That must not happen.'' The Sunday Mainichi was even more dramatic, with an editorial that urged: ''No unprincipled deals, please!'' This referred to the widespread anxiety that any compromise reached by the politicians in an effort to get some measures passed would in effect diminish the prospects for real reform.
''We call on Hosokawa to heed two things regarding the negotiations,'' the Mainichi said. ''He should not compromise on the content of the bills. In particular, he should not accept any further emasculation of the restriction on corporate political donations.'' Corporate donations to individual politicians are banned under the failed legislation, but the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), in blatant disregard of public opinion expressed in many polls, still insists that the proviso be deleted.
This emphasises the quandary in which Mr Hosokawa is placed as he seeks to attain some degree of consensus with the LDP in the next six days.