A change of finance minister shows who wields power in Japan’s ruling party

WHEN Japan’s 77-year-old finance minister submitted his resignation on Tuesday January 5th, the reason given was poor health. The week before he had been admitted to hospital complaining of exhaustion and high blood pressure after drafting the 2010 budget.

But illness was not Hirohisa Fujii’s main problem. Instead it appears to have been a case of bad blood at the top of Mr Hatoyama’s ruling clique. Mr Fujii, people who have spoken to him say, grew increasingly frustrated with the power Ichiro Ozawa, secretary-general of the ruling party, had over Mr Hatoyama, and a festering feud between the two men eventually boiled over in the budget-drafting process. …