Perhaps the same cannot be said of the LDP's manifesto, in which often the policies, including its aim of achieving 2 percent growth in the economy by 2010, lack detail or look to implement reforms in the distant future, not within the four years of government that the public will vote for on Sunday.

The DPJ is also promising to implement reforms in the way that government is run, both as a way of saving money and creating a more efficient and people-led policy making body.

In its manifesto, the party says it wishes to see a change " from government delegated to the bureaucracy, to politician-led government in which the ruling party holds full responsibility."

While this is being presented as an earth-shattering change by the DPJ, Kingston argued that it will likely be a gradual change that allows the bureaucrats to keep some of their powers.

The bureaucrats "are people the DPJ will have to work with, so what sounds good out there on the campaign trail, is difficult to translate into the realities of Kasumigaseki and Nagatacho," he said.

"The DPJ will give more guidance and scrutinize policy more carefully, but it does not have the capacity to replace the bureaucracy and the policy-making process."

While the LDP has similar policies, including eliminating " amakudari" (the act of giving high-paying jobs in the private sector to former government bureaucrats), voters seem to believe that the LDP has already had enough time to do this, and has not done so.

The battle that wasn't 

Under the shadow of a global recession, it is unsurprising that the DPJ and LDP would argue over the economy and how to fix it. But as a party that has held on to power for more than five decades, the LDP has found that it has not been able to connect with voters at all.

In the manifesto, the LDP says, "we possess the confidence that comes from having nurtured a postwar Japan into becoming one of the leading nations of the world."

This, perhaps tells half the story.

Since the economic bubble burst, there has been a sense in Japan that the nation was in a state of decline. Even in times of economic growth, the nation was far more unequal than it was before the economic crisis of the late 1980s and early '90s.

"This election is a verdict on the structural reforms made by Koizumi, which brought into being winners and losers. This is not the sort of society Japanese people want to have," said Kingston

"Japan is a society tied to egalitarian ideals and proud of it and the structural reforms have widened disparities markedly. There were disparities before the reforms, but they have amplified those," he added.

Thus, the phrase "seiken kotai" seems to have been enough to secure electoral victory for the DPJ before official campaigning had even begun on Aug. 18. This has led to few of the explosive exchanges that have marked campaigns such as last year's battle for the White House in the United States that saw Barack Obama elected.

In fact, the DPJ has struggled to gain approval according to media polls. Voters simply have a lack of confidence in the LDP.

"The campaign has been rather subdued, and that may not be a bad thing for the DPJ, as in the end, once you come to power, you will end up disappointing people," Nakano said.

"If expectations are relatively low to begin with, there are fewer people to disappoint once you are in government. This might actually be better (for the DPJ) than exaggerated hopes for a new party in government," said the scholar.

(Xinhua News Agency August 28, 2009)