The plan faced strong opposition led by the Japanese Socialist Party (JSP) that accused Hatoyama of wanting to "hatomander" the electoral districts to his needs.
A second attempt to introduce "small" electoral districts, but this time under a parallel voting system with proportional representation, was made by LDP president and prime minister Kakuei Tanaka in 1973.
Some, among them LDP secretary general Ichirō Ozawa, also argued for the original "Hatomander" consisting exclusively of single-member districts.
During the ultimately successful debate over electoral reform in the 1990s, parts of the JSP remained opposed to the introduction of single-member districts creating friction in the anti-LDP multi-party coalition under Morihiro Hosokawa.
An electoral reform bill was eventually launched in 1994 that – unlike the original "Hatomander" plan – also introduced a parallel voting system in which about a third of seats are filled by proportional representation.