Top officials of the nation's reigning political party should join the Cabinet to put more policymaking power into the hands of the prime minister, a Liberal Democratic Party panel said in a proposal revealed Sunday.

The LDP's Strategy Headquarters, led by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is also LDP president, said in the draft that a party's policymaking chief should be given a Cabinet position to enable the prime minister to make policy decisions in a rapid, top-down style.

The panel also proposed that other top executives, including the secretary general, should also join the Cabinet as ministers without portfolios in the future so that the party will be more in tune with Cabinet policies.

The proposal was mapped out mainly by House of Representatives member Yasuhisa Shiozaki, who heads the headquarters' project team on political system.

The team hopes to formalize the proposal, which was modeled on the LDP, by the end of the month. But observers say strong opposition is likely from within the LDP because it could fundamentally alter the relationship between the Cabinet and the LDP under the party's longtime rule of the government. The prime minister's office has been occupied by an LDP president for most of the four decades since 1955.

Currently, government-proposed bills must go through advance screening by the party's policy council before they are submitted to the Diet. LDP opponents of Koizumi's reform policies often criticize the prime minister for trying to ignore this process, with some even calling his style a "dictatorship."

A senior official of the LDP panel said the system of advance screenings should be changed, although he indicated that some ways should be left for the party's lawmakers to have their opinions reflected in government policies.

The draft proposal says that the Cabinet's functions should be strengthened to ensure speedy policymaking and clarify where the responsibilities lie.

To realize that, the proposal calls for placing 30 more LDP lawmakers in the government as vice ministers and parliamentary secretaries, who should also serve concurrently as heads of the relevant section of the party's Policy Affairs Research Council.

The number of deputy chief Cabinet secretaries, who assist the prime minister at his official residence, should be increased to seven -- five from among Diet members and two from among government bureaucrats, according to the proposal.

It also said an office should be set up within the Cabinet secretariat for assistant officials in charge of policy matters, which will consist of 10 staffers from both the public and private sectors.

The draft proposal also said Cabinet meetings should be conducted on by a majority rule, instead of by unanimous decision by the participants under the current rule, with the prime minister making the final judgment.