Seldom in politics has there been a revival of electoral fortunes as rapid and -dramatic as that enjoyed yesterday by Japan’s -Liberal Democratic party.
Just three years ago, the conservative LDP suffered a crushing general election defeat by the insurgent Democratic Party of Japan that seemed to spell an end to a domination of Japanese -politics that had endured for more than half a -century.
In an interview with the Financial Times in 2010, Sadakazu Tanigaki, the then LDP leader, even -worried that if the party suffered another setback in Diet upper house voting later that year, then there was a “strong possibility” it could “fall apart”.