Two big political parties vie for the attention of voters; they issue manifestos to explain their policies; the opposition threatens to release leaked documents about a bank rescue financed with taxpayers' money; and the head of an indebted public corporation resigns over a row about its accounts. After half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic party, Japan is starting to look suspiciously like a normal democracy ahead of the general election on November 9.

Democratisation and an end to the LDP's stultifying grip on political power are certainly what Japan needs. Some of the country's business leaders say openly they want the opposition Democratic Party of Japan to do well in the election so that the country can adopt a two-party system similar to that of the US or the UK. "We support a nation where a change of government is possible," they declared in an advertisement in Japanese newspapers.