InsideJapan News Network

Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama has been taking steps to drastically reform the way in which business is down in the country's parliament.

Since he has been in power - he won a landslide victory in August last year - Hatoyama has got rid of political standards which have been part of the Japanese system for a long time, said the Christian Science Monitor.

First to go was the Monday meeting of bureaucrats, noted the source - and while he continues his mission to "overturn Japanese political habits of a lifetime", people watch with interest.

Hatoyama hopes his changes will give more power to elected politicians rather than civil servants.

Political commentator Minoru Morita said: "They are trying to do the right thing; politicians should be responsible for politics, not bureaucrats."

Hatoyama's election last summer broke almost six decades of constant rule by the Liberal Democrat Party, who had been in power for some 54 years when Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan won the election vote.

Written by Kimberley Homer.


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