Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is under intense pressure to overhaul his administration after two scandal-tainted aides were forced to resign in December. The trouble came only three months after he took office.
Abe's influence could decline sharply, and the reform plans he inherited from predecessor Junichiro Koizumi could stall. His fate hangs in the balance.
Like Koizumi, Abe has tried to run his administration under the leadership of the Cabinet office. However, that strategy failed when the ruling Liberal Democratic Party overrode the Cabinet office and decided to allow 11 rebels to rejoin the party after they had been ousted for voting against Koizumi's postal-reform legislation last year. The rebels' reinstatement, which made irrelevant the Lower House election over postal reform, gave the impression that the LDP had returned to its old form.