When the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) swept to power in 2009, ending 54 years of virtual one-party rule, one of its most controversial policy platforms was to establish a friendship with China that balanced the close post-war relationship with America one of the hallmarks of the Liberal Democratic Party's rule.
Both parties have been pushed towards their respective extremes, but one party must rule and so the effects on the Republicans, as the minority party, have been worse.
America has only had one-party rule (with the same party controlling the White House and both chambers) for six years out of the 28 since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 two years under Bill Clinton and four and a bit under George Bush.
"From the birth of the Lebanese state, Tripoli has resisted being a part of Lebanon, " said Ahmad al QasQas, a media representative for the Lebanese chapter of Hizb al-Tahrir, a pan-Arab Islamist party with aspirations for one nation spanning the region under the rule of an emir.
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Since the era of Ronald Reagan however, the Republicans have come to believe that they could obliterate the Democratic Party just as the Bolshiviks smashed the Tsarist state, and rule effectively, if not literally, as a one party system.
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But they can dwell on one final potential similarity: the 1988 election produced a one-term presidency before a long period of rule by the defeated party.
This is due to a rule that states if a club in Germany receives major financial backing from one party for over 20 years, that party can then take a controlling stake in the club.
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Our correspondent said he had fallen victim to the persistence of the Labour Party - "who portrayed him as all that was worst about the government, symbolising one rule for those at the top and one for everyone else" - and the Police Federation who were fighting the government over cuts and reform.
Mr Cannonier, a relative newcomer to Bermudan politics, was propelled into power in December 2012 when his One Bermuda Alliance ousted the government of Premier Paula Cox and ended 14 years of rule by the Progressive Labour Party (PLP).
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