TOKYO - Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has held power for all but a handful of years since the 1950s, due largely to strong support in rural areas of the archipelago. That formula for success now looks to be unravelling ahead of Oct 27’s national election.

Polls show that the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who took the job on Oct 1, may fail to win a majority for the first time since 2009, even though the LDP will likely get more votes than any other party. That is mostly the result of fallout from a slush fund scandal that tainted the party’s reputation.