The Liberal Democratic Party's largest faction, led by former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, held its annual fundraising party April 21 at a Tokyo hotel and generated the majority of its annual revenues -- all in one night.

The Hashimoto faction appeared desperate to draw a big turnout to the affair to demonstrate the group's power, as a rival faction led by former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori was holding its own event at a nearby hotel.

"It's great. (Attendees) have packed the room from corner to corner," LDP Executive Council Chairman Mitsuo Horiuchi, an invited guest, said of the 4,200 people who filled the Tokyo Prince Hotel banquet hall. The guests, mainly business representatives, paid at least 20,000 yen for a ticket to the event, which included light meals and drinks.

Despite the glitter, the affair reflects the declining clout of traditional LDP factions. The groups now must depend on fundraising parties because their bosses no longer wield the clout to raise funds on their own.

"We're in a transitional period," said Akihiko Kumashiro, a House of Representatives member in the Hashimoto faction. "I think (LDP lawmakers) are staying with factions merely out of habit."

When it was founded in 1955, the LDP was a coalition of factions instead of one coherent party.

It effectively ruled the country until it became mired in bribery and tax-evasion scandals in 1993. Voters never considered the Socialists and Communists as viable alternatives.

Faction leaders jockeyed to be LDP president, and thus prime minister, winning over followers with money and high-level party posts. Cabinet members were also chosen based on the factional balance of power.

But when the money scandals broke out, the Political Funds Control Law was revised in 1994 to prohibit corporate donations to politicians, except contributions to legally designated fund-management bodies.

The revision made corporations more reluctant to donate funds to faction bosses and increased factions' dependence on fundraising events, political insiders say.

According to the 2002 political funds report submitted by the Hashimoto faction to the home affairs ministry, the group raised 257.6 million yen with one party, 63 percent of its total annual income that year.

Most of the party tickets were sold by individual faction members, who were obliged to sell a certain number to corporate leaders and others.

Yoshitaka Sakurada, a Hashimoto faction member who has been elected to the House of Representatives three times, had to sell at least 150 tickets at 20,000 yen each for the April event.

In addition, he pays a monthly membership fee to the faction that amounts to 600,000 yen a year.

"So in total, I would be contributing 3.6 million yen a year to the faction," Sakurada said.

The 2002 funds report shows that junior members of the Hashimoto faction each received 4 million yen from the group that year -- much of which was offset by the money they themselves contributed to the faction's coffers.

"I'm not saying I owe nothing to the faction," Sakurada said. "But my words and actions are not bound (to the faction's decisions), even if I receive money from the faction."

Sakurada's stance is not uncommon among junior LDP lawmakers who have a weaker sense of loyalty to faction bosses.

Kumashiro recalled that Hashimoto-faction members donated 100,000 yen each to support their boss when he successfully ran for the LDP presidency in 1995.

"We thought it was funny, because in the old days, we would have been given money (by a faction boss)," Kumashiro said.

In addition to the revision to the political funds law, the change from multiseat to single-seat constituencies in the Lower House electoral system also eroded factional power.

The system was changed because the multiseat system created a situation in which several LDP candidates competed against each other in the same constituencies, causing the party to splinter into several factions.

"During the time of the multiseat system, (faction members) might have obediently followed their bosses, because they gave them great amounts of money to run in fierce elections," Sakurada said.

"But now under the single-seat system, I think the power of factions has weakened," he said.

In fact, Sakurada and many other Hashimoto faction members voted for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in the last LDP presidential election, in September, defying demands by executives of their group to support Takao Fujii, the Hashimoto faction candidate running against Koizumi.

A similar situation occurred in the Horiuchi faction, which was split over whom to support after failing to field a candidate from its own ranks. In the end, many members opted to vote for Koizumi.

A change in the public's voting behavior has also weakened the LDP factions, Kumashiro said.

Faction leaders traditionally played the pork-barrel role, pouring money into public works projects and doing favors for interest groups in return for votes. These groups have long included construction firms, doctor associations, farmers, veterans and relatives of the war dead, and other lobbies.

But this vote-generating machine has slowed in recent years, as people feel less loyal to any one political organization or candidate and floating votes hold greater sway.

"The times have changed. Now voters decide on their own," Kumashiro said.

This situation gave rise to Koizumi. Although he lacks factional strength, he has parlayed his popularity with the public into greater power in the party, he added.

Koizumi has advocated doing away with factional politics and selects Cabinet members on his own.

His style has upset the key role factions have played in influencing the prime minister's Cabinet picks. Junior lawmakers biding their time while serving their faction bosses can no longer expect to eventually, and automatically, land top posts.