First of all, I would like to express my respect to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda for his swift decision to step down. My view on Prime Minister Fukuda since he came into office is that his strongest point lies in his humility.
Constantly compared with his late father, Takeo Fukuda, who had enjoyed the expectations of conservatives as a politician following in the footsteps of the Nobusuke Kishi administration, Yasuo Fukuda is a person able to look at himself objectively. It was the same when he resigned as chief Cabinet secretary in 2004. He knows when to quit without clinging to power and his position.
As Fukuda mentioned, his decision to quit this time grew out of the split Diet, itself the result of an unintended drawback in the process of drafting the Constitution during the postwar Occupation.