For the Liberal Democratic Party, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's resignation Wednesday was too long in coming, and regaining the public's trust will have to be the LDP's main objective from this point forward, critics said.
Abe's decision to quit came just two days after vowing in a Diet speech that he was going to soldier on and pursue his policy goals.
"I've never heard of anything like this," in which a prime minister quit right after giving his policy speech, said Norihiko Narita, a political science professor at Surugadai University in Saitama Prefecture.