What do Pinocchio, Medvedav and Hatoyama have in common?

Alright, that's easy even if you’re not familiar with politics. Pinocchio is the world's most famous puppet. Dmitry Medvedev now plays a close second to the Disney creation with his master, former President and still undisputed champion of modern Russia Iron Vlad Putin, calling all the shots. It is now clear that current Prime Minister of Japan Yukio Hatoyama is being led along by Party Kingpin Ichiro Ozawa, current DPJ Secretary General.

Hatoyama, with all the panache of a Kia car seat stumbles through awkward press conferences and is, to put it mildly, not terribly exciting. The media has begun to focus on the influence that Ozawa commands in government discussions and decisions. This week the DPJ has shifted their policy on a major election promise. A pledge that helped them claim a decisive victory in the August general election. Hatoyama promised to end surcharges on road-related taxes that amount to 2.5 trillion yen in annual government revenue. Now the policy is essentially a mute-point as Ozawa has called on the government to continue imposing the tax, and Hatoyama has backed this request. The change in policy highlights the growing instability of the ruling coalition. The DPJ campaigned heavily against the "policy flip-flops" of the former LDP party and now it seems they've both flipped and flopped on the one of the single biggest promises they had made to voters.

So what? The government has said one thing and done another. It happens everyday in politics. This may be true to us in the West, but Japanese Governments have to make efforts to honour their campaign promises or they will pay the price in voter trust. The DPJ upset the LDP, snatching up more than 70 per cent of the votes in the last election, but their most recent polling numbers are hovering at the 50 per cent level. Sharp drops like these have recently been seen by many Japanese Prime Ministers, including Taro Aso, Yasuo Fukuda and Shinzo Abe, who lasted roughly a year after such steep drops in popular support. Thus, Japan has lacked a popular and dynamic Prime Minister since the days of Koizumi.

Hatoyama, and his supporters are aware of the government’s image problem and leading Cabinet Ministers have been propping up Hatoyama to the media. Hirofumi Hirano, the Chief Cabinet Secretary has publicly stated that Hatoyama has made the final decision on the gasoline and vehicle related taxes. This political support alone will not help Hatoyama hold the reigns of the top office in Japan. He needs to distance himself from Ozawa's control to establish his own legitimacy or he will continue to be seen as a puppet. Hatoyama is trying to do such with the recent announcement and rejection of Ozawa's proposal to institute an income cap on the child-care allowance. However, this ploy has not passed the test according to political commentators in Japan. Minoru Morita, a political critic has commented that, "Hatoyama is clearly just the head clerk of the administration."