Japanese Prime Minister Abe Will Resign

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe holds a draft of his keynote speech as he attends at the opening of the 62-day extraordinary session at Parliament in Tokyo Monday, Sept. 10, 2007. Abe has told ruling party leaders he wants to resign, news reports said Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye) (Itsuo Inouye - AP)

"He remained in office after the ruling party lost a majority ... (but) today, he expressed his resignation right before parliamentary questioning," said opposition leader Ozawa. "I've been a politician for nearly 40 years, but I think this is the first time."

Abe's resignation marked a rapid fall from power for a prime minister who came into office a year ago with ambitious plans to repair frayed relations with Asian neighbors, revise the 1947 pacifist constitution, and bolster Japan's role in international diplomatic and military affairs.

The prime minister, whose grandfather was premier and whose father was a foreign minister, initially met with success in fence-mending trips last autumn to China and South Korea. He also passed laws bolstering patriotic education and upgrading the Defense Agency to a full ministry for the first time since World War II.

But a string of scandals starting late last year quickly eroded his support. Four Cabinet ministers were forced to resign over the past nine months, and one _ his first agriculture minister _ committed suicide over a money scandal.

Support for the political blue-blood was also damaged by his concentration on ideological issues _ such as patriotism and constitutional reform _ at a time when many Japanese are concerned over the widening gap between rich and poor and other bread-and-butter worries.

In such a weakened state, Abe may have feared he wouldn't have the clout to win passage of the Afghan mission, said Eiken Itagaki, a political analyst and writer.

"He has run out of political capital," Itagaki said. "So he bolted, in the hope that a more experienced successor can save the mission, and sort out the mess."

It also was a sharp reversal of fortunes for the ruling party, which has controlled Japan almost uninterruptedly since it was formed in 1955. Abe succeeded the wildly popular Junichiro Koizumi, who led the LDP to a landslide victory in elections for the powerful lower house in 2005.

Though Aso is considered a front-runner to succeed Abe, it is not clear whether he has the political clout and popular support to stop the LDP's slide in popularity.