Japan's Liberal Democratic Party: an election bulldozer

And having misfired of late, polls suggest that Japan's first woman Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi might manage to bring back the glory days with a thumping election win on Sunday. AFP looks at the history of the LDP, what it believes in and the reasons for its decades of success, even in the age of social media and populism. What were its beginnings? The LDP began in 1955 as a merger between two conservative parties and governed constantly until 1993, overseeing a huge expansion of the economy and living standards.