Japan PM hopeful pledges bureaucrat crackdown

TOKYO — They are highly educated, mostly male and almost always wear grey suits, and now they are in the cross-hairs of the man who hopes to become Japan's next prime minister: government bureaucrats.

People the world over may love to hate civil servants, often accusing them of slowing down business and everyday life with a thicket of red tape, unnecessary rules and incomprehensible jargon.

But Japan's state bureaucrats, all 360,000 of them, are a slightly different species -- they may just be too good at what they do. Critics charge that it is they, not politicians, who have been running the country.

For too long, says Japan's opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama, the mandarins have quietly steered the ship of state and asked the elected lawmakers to rubber-stamp their decisions.

Hatoyama wants to clip their wings, a goal that is a key plank of his campaign platform ahead of the August 30 election which, polls have indicated, may well make him Japan's next prime minister.

The election, Hatoyama has said, will be a "revolutionary vote to create a new Japan with politician-led politics."

"In contrast with the bureaucrat-led politics... we will produce politics in which the public plays a leading role."