Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is living his darkest hours since he took office last October, after the Liberal Democratic Party leadership threw in the towel on his presidency — preempting by just days the party’s long-awaited final call on an early presidential poll.

Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama’s offering on Tuesday to take responsibility for the party’s poor performance in the recent Upper House election and tender his resignation has triggered a domino effect, with the entire top executive line abandoning a slowly sinking ship in recent days.

On Wednesday, in a speech at a faction training event in Yokohama, Taro Aso, a former prime minister and current party adviser whose distrust of Ishiba is well-known, revealed that he will be asking for an early presidential vote. His group, the only faction formally left in the party, counts 43 members.