The Liberal Democratic Party is one of the democratic world's most successful political parties, a one-size-fits-all electoral machine in power for all but four of the last 69 years.
But in snap parliamentary elections on Sunday, the LDP and its junior coalition partner fell short of a majority for the first time since 2009 at the hands of voters angry at a slush fund scandal.
Below is the history of the LDP, what it believes in and the reasons for its decades of success:
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