Unlike the development teams at a software company, though, the development teams here do not have any special privileges over the software. They only have "control" for as long as their users continue choosing their forks.
If a second "development team" sprung up and had more user support than the existing team, there is literally no advantage the current team has to control the software.
And if a second government sprung up with more support, the old one would be out of luck, too.
I don't think we can simply discount the power these developers wield. They have a lot of explicit and implicit (as in "just install the latest version") trust. Sure, they could loose it, but they can do a lot of damage before doing so.
With software you need to consent to perform each update (I don't think bitcoin core has auto-update yet). This is nowhere comparable to a government in power, which has enormous power and can't be easily deposed. Even recall elections take some time, and can theoretically be interfered by government controlled security forces.
If a second "development team" sprung up and had more user support than the existing team, there is literally no advantage the current team has to control the software.