A snap election called by Prime Minister Shinzō Abe in reaction to perceived weaknesses in the opposition saw the coalition win 313 of the 465 seats in the lower house of Japan's Parliamentary Diet.

It means that the next elections are not due until 2021, one year after Tokyo 2020.

Despite the coalition parties losing six and five seats respectively, they still retained a decisive majority.

Abe's popularity had fallen in recent months due to political scandals, but it recovered after North Korea fired missiles over the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

He promised strong defence measures against the Pyongyang regime, but seems to have moved away from his previous goal of amending the country's constitution to give explicit recognition to the armed forces - a policy which would have been put to the people in a referendum.

Such a move would be controversial in a land still characterised by strong anti-military feelings since the Second World War, in reaction to the country's occupation of other Asian nations and the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The newly-founded Party of Hope, established by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, failed to make the gains it had hoped for.

It was overtaken by the centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party as the main opposition, after the latter, under Yukio Edano, gained 40 seats.

Abe will also be hoping that the electoral success will lead to him being elected to a third three-year term as LDP leader when the party votes on the issue in September next year. 

This would, in turn, give him the chance to become Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister after his election to office in 2012.

He did serve for a year between 2006 and 2007, when he stepped down for health reasons, before becoming the first former Prime Minister to return to office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948.

In 2014 he retained his two-thirds majority with Komeito and has repeated the feat this year, once again joining forces with Natsuo Yamaguchi.

The Nikkei has already hit new highs on the stock markets since the election results were announced, with the likely economic stability also set to assist preparations for Tokyo 2020.

The LDP has dominated Japanese politics since it was founded in 1955, except for a period between 1993 and 1994 and again between 2009 and 2012.

Japan's situation building up to Tokyo 2020 contrasts with other countries which have headed into Olympics.

The Presidents of the host nations of the previous and next Olympics were both impeached.

In the lead-up to Rio 2016, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, the first female holder of the office, was re-elected in 2014 after defeating Aécio Neves by a narrow margin.

Rousseff's predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was in office at the time that Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, faced controversies and has since been convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.

In May 2016, three months before Rio 2016, Rousseff herself was summoned to an impeachment trial and she was then impeached in September of the same year.

She was accused of "fiscal irresponsibility" for allegedly trying to manipulate budget gaps during the 2014 election but has denied any wrongdoing.

Pyeongchang 2018 has also been impacted by political changes, with South Korean President Park Geun-hye impeached in December after a cronyism and corruption scandal.

The 1988 Seoul Games followed a period of political instability in South Korea, when the Sixth Republic, established under Roh Tae-woo, won the December 1987 Presidential election with 37 per cent of the vote.

This followed protests known as the "June Struggle" which persuaded Roh's predecessor, Chun Du-Hwan, to agree to measures to improve human rights.

A constitutional amendment to facilitate these measures was overwhelmingly passed by the electorate in an October 1987 referendum, which paved the way for the direct election of the sixth President.

In the case of Britain, preparations for London 2012 were also interrupted by political instability.

When the city was announced in 2005, Labour, led by Tony Blair, enjoyed a solid majority, but in 2010 this gave way to a coalition administration which saw the Conservatives, led by David Cameron, relying on the assistance of Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats.

This led to the formation of Britain's first full-scale coalition in 70 years, since Winston Churchill's war-time Government.

An informal pact, well short of a coalition, had existed between Labour and the old Liberal Party between 1977 and 1978, after a number of by-election losses had eroded Labour's 1974 majority of three.