ABSTRACT
Japan will soon start to use a new election rule. The Diet has passed a new law providing that 300 Lower House members will be chosen by a single-member district plurality system and 200 will be chosen separately by proportional representation with a partydecided list of candidates. This outcome is the result of a simple compromise between the L.D.P. and the Ozawa group, which support a single-member district plurality system, and the anti-L.D.P. parties, which support a proportional representation system.
