If power were a matter of topography, there would be no doubt about who really rules Japan. Tokyo's Nagatacho political district, home to parliament and prime minister, sits grandly at the top of a hill, looking down on both the imperial palace and Kasumigaseki, the locality where the nation's bureaucrats labour anonymously in bland ministerial buildings.
For Japan's opposition Democratic party, however, the politicians' control of the high ground is no more than an illusion. Even as they prepare for a general election that polls suggest could grant them a historic victory over the long-ruling Liberal Democratic party, DPJ leaders are aiming at a more fundamental objective: wresting authority from the government officials whom they see as the true powers behind the world's second largest economy.
