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"I propose to you that I resign as the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan today," Naoto Kan told party lawmakers Friday. "Once a new leader is elected, I will resign promptly as prime minister and my cabinet will resign en masse."

There are at least seven people interested in becoming the new party leader in the vote that has been set for Monday, including the hawkish former foreign minister Seiji Maehara and current finance minister Yoshihoko Noda. Whoever wins will become prime minister by virtue of the party's majority in the lower house of parliament. He or she will become Japan's fifth prime minister in five years and will hope to stay in power longer than their predecessors.

Kan had said he would resign after two major pieces of legislation had been passed. One approves the issuance of deficit-covering government bonds and the other promotes renewable energy. They were both passed on Friday.

'I did my best'

On Friday, he reflected on his time leading Japan in its worst post-war crisis. "I believe I did my best and did what I had to do in severe conditions," he said, adding that he would continue to work on nuclear-related issues as a politician and pursue "a society that does not rely on nuclear plants."

Kan's supporters say that it is his rejection of nuclear energy and promotion of renewable energies that lost him support within his own party and Japan's establishment. When he initially said he would resign after the government had got the earthquake and nuclear disaster under control, some saw this almost as a threat.

It would have meant him staying in power for a long time since Japan has so many problems to resolve. The crippled nuclear plant at Fukushima is still not under control; air and water are contaminated, and the reconstruction will take years. Months after the earthquake, some 100,000 are living in difficult conditions in temporary emergency accommodation.

In the end, Naoto Kan was forced to resign because he had lost all support - within his party, in parliament and amid the population. Once the most popular politician in Japan, his ratings had fallen to below 20 percent.

However, his problems did not begin with the triple disaster that struck in March. His popularity had plummeted because of financial scandals, unpopular tax reforms and high-level resignations even before the earthquake and there were increasing calls for him to step down.

Ineffective but transparent

On March 11, he was propelled into the role of crisis manager but was soon faced with the same calls to resign as he came under criticism for mishandling the disaster. Aid came too late, announcements were not followed up by action and Kan was accused of being ineffective.

Kan, who considers himself a man of the people, did win some praise for his insistence on transparency and his attempts to ensure that whatever information came to him from the operator of the Fukushima plant TEPCO was passed on to the Japanese population.

Fossilized structures

With his background as a civil rights activist, Kan is different from most of Japan's political and business elite and has often rubbed the establishment the wrong way. While this originally made him friends among the people, it also earned him enemies. The erstwhile student activist began his political career with a small environmental party and in 1996 he became health minister, making a name for himself as a defender of civil rights with his exposure of a contaminated blood scandal that the government was implicated in. Kan became deputy prime minister and finance minister in Yukio Hatoyama's cabinet in 2009.

When he became prime minister last June, Kan had high hopes of changing Japan radically. After the Fukushima crisis, he did his best to reduce the influence of the nuclear lobby and placed a strong focus on renewable energies. This was an ambitious project in a country so poor in resources and so dependent on nuclear energy considering its island status, but he was determined, criticizing TEPCO in unusually sharp tones, and even considering nationalizing the nuclear giant. His suggestion to set up an independent nuclear watchdog was unpopular among many senior politicians.

Anybody who wants to change Japan needs incredible powers or strong allies. In the end, Kan had neither. He had made too many enemies and lost his supporters amid the Japanese population, and was unable to break down Japan's fossilized structures. His successor will face the same challenge of resolving the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, overseeing Japan's biggest post-war reconstruction and will also have to contend with the country's fossilized structures.

Author: Alexander Freund / act
Editor: Hao Gui