12/12/15 17:17:02.32 vgDeNQ/AP BE:1004603227-2BP(1000)
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Japan loses faith in traditional politics
15 December 2012 Last updated at 00:25 GMT BBC News, Tokyo
Voters are looking for stronger leadership from the next prime minister
The traditional view of Japanese elections is that they are boring - prime ministers come, prime ministers go, but nothing really changes and Japan carries on regardless.
For more than half a century, it was right.
But in the past few years Japanese politics has changed. More importantly the Japanese public has changed - they have lost faith in the traditional political parties.
Three years ago they kicked out the old Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and gave a landslide win to the Democratic Party of Japan.
This weekend they will do exactly the opposite - kicking out the Democrats and handing power back to the LDP. But they like neither of them.
Japanese politicians only have themselves to blame. Since the Japanese economic bubble burst in 1992, Japanese people have lived through 20 years of stagnation and deflation.
Ask any economist of any stripe what Japan needs and they will give you a very similar list.
Regulation needs to be loosened, foreign investment welcomed and women empowered to stay at work while raising families.
The government should invest in education and science, rather than in endless pork barrel infrastructure projects that Japan doesn't need. And people will need to pay more tax if Japan is to avoid one day going bankrupt.
Instead, Japanese politicians have put off and put off reform, while borrowing more and more to pay for spending.
Public debt now stands at around 230% of GDP, higher than Greece or any other country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
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