Japan prime minister Yasuo Fukuda resigns

Yasuo Fukuda, 72, appeared to blindside his party Monday, saying he would resign as soon as a new leader was picked. He blamed what he saw as an obstructionist opposition party for his departure, but offered no clear explanation for his timing.

"I have decided to step down so as not to create a political vacuum," he told a hastily called news conference.

Many here argue that the country is already facing a vacuum in political leadership. With opposition parties controlling Japan's upper house and pressing for an election, a frustrated Fukuda was unable to pass major legislation, including a bill essential to renewing the participation of Japan's navy in American-led anti-terrorism activities in the Indian Ocean.

Fukuda was further damaged by a weakening economy, which has seen negative growth while prices jumped, especially for food. An $18-billion stimulus package introduced last week had been dismissed by most market analysts as ineffectual.

The combination of economic trouble and the governing Liberal Democratic Party's apparent drift sent its approval rates plummeting in the last month to below 30% in most polls.

The LDP reached out to Fukuda just a year ago after Shinzo Abe, his much-heralded predecessor, threw in the towel after a year of dismal leadership. Abe left his party in tatters, foundering on a conservative agenda to restore national pride and core Japanese values, dismissed as out of touch by voters more worried about their economic future.

They delivered that message during elections for the upper house in 2007, in which they handed control to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

After the erratic Abe, Fukuda was regarded by the party as a steady replacement who could steer the government through the legislative roadblocks. But the opposition never allowed him to get traction, blocking almost every major initiative in hopes of forcing a general election the LDP does not want. The dim electoral prospects had also unsettled the New Komeito Party, a powerful grass-roots machine built on a national Buddhist organization, whose lawmakers are essential to keeping the LDP in power.

"The LDP would have no chance of winning an election if it was called now," said Minoru Morita, a leading political analyst.