Though Fumio Kyuma, the outgoing defense chief, was defiant until the very end, it did not take much longer for him to surrender and accept the irony of fate. He made the comment on Friday, and by Tuesday he was gone from the cabinet, a rapid turn of events in the otherwise slow paced movement that characterizes Japanese politics.

Another of his cabinet colleagues is still hanging on, despite being severely criticized by the media and the public in general for branding women as "baby making machines." Hakuo Yanagisawa, the health and welfare minister who made that comment, survived, most likely due to the fact that his comment, though politically not correct, had little to do with emotional issues that occupy a very important position in Japanese politics, and also due to the fact that he apologized time and again for what he said was a big mistake.

Kyuma, on the other hand, was adamantly sticking to his point, and said that he actually did not mean what his comment overtly reflected. It now seems that nobody, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who had appointed him to the post, could decipher the real meaning, and Kyuma had no other choice but to leave.

With Kyuma gone, the door suddenly opened for the first time in Japanese history for a woman to occupy the post of the country's defense chief. Yuriko Koike, the 54-year old politician seen by many as a skilful ladder-climber in the cut-throat world of the male-dominated political world of Japan, quickly stepped in to fill the vacuum, thus becoming the first woman in Japan to take the helm of defense. She is obviously not a novice in defense related issues, because she was serving as National Security Advisor to the prime minister. In the cabinet, too, she is not a newcomer, as she was environment minister in the past administration of Junichiro Koizumi.

Moreover, she was one of the "killers" that Koizumi dispatched to unseat rebel ruling party candidates who opposed his postal reform bill, and were contesting in the last general elections in September 2005 as independent candidates. Yuriko Koike was among the most successful "killers," and unseated a heavyweight rebel in a Tokyo constituency. As a result, many have already started to keep a watchful eye on how far she would be able to salvage Abe from the damages inflicted by Kyuma and, a few weeks earlier, by another cabinet member who took the time honoured path in Japan to commit suicide to avoid facing embarrassment which, in his case, was the possibility of encountering legal proceedings for questionable dealings related to his office expenses.

Abe's image as a politician capable of bringing changes that would benefit Japan has come under question, not only due to the behaviour and attitude of some of his cabinet members, but also because of a series of scandals that have eroded the people's trust in the government. The ruling coalition in recent days overrode opposition protests and steamrolled a number of questionable bills, among which one allowed a special exemption from the statute of limitations for pension benefit payouts of people whose records had not been maintained. The ruling coalition also went ahead with a job placement law to help retiring government employees find new jobs in the private sector.

The prime minister might have felt confident that all these measures would earn him public approval. But, as many in Japan are now worried about their pensions, the recent measures taken by the ruing block caused just the opposite reaction, and in the beginning of July the support for the Abe cabinet fell below 30 percent for the first time.

The approval rating of the Abe administration began sliding in May, when the problem of pension premium records came to light. A further drop was marked after the suicide of the then agriculture minister, Toshikatsu Matsumoto, amid accusations of financial impropriety. And now the resignation of the defense minister is sure to erode further the support rating for the cabinet.

Election for the upper house of the Japanese Diet is scheduled to be held on July 29. With the election less then three weeks away, Abe must find the situation deeply troubling. A nationwide opinion poll conducted by Japan's influential daily Asahi Shimbun at the beginning of July showed that only 28 percent of respondents said that they supported the Abe cabinet. The figure is a three percentage point drop from the previous poll conducted during the second half of June. The nonsupport rating of the cabinet, however, stayed unchanged at 48 percent.

The Abe cabinet has been facing falling support rating for quite sometime now. After a strong start, there has been a steady decline in popularity due to a series of scandals and perceived poor leadership. And now, it is the first time that the figure has fallen to below 30 percent since Abe took office in September 2006. It should be noted that the Koizumi cabinet always managed to stay above the 30 percent mark, and it was his predecessor Yoshiro Mori who had to resign abruptly as his support rating continued to drop. So, is Abe going to face the same fate as Mori?

Obviously it is still too early to predict Abe's possible resignation. Much will depend on the outcome of the upper house election. As the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) controls the lower house that chooses the prime minister, a loss by the LDP would not necessarily mean that Abe would have to step down. But such a scenario would no doubt put pressure on him to pave the way for a more popular party leader. But the problem with LDP is that the party lacks a leader who can be considered popular in the true sense. So it is unlikely that Abe might step down in case the party shows a poor result.

Another important factor that, too, goes in Abe's favor is the inability of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to channel the public's dissatisfaction with the cabinet to its own advantage. In the latest Asahi poll, participants were asked how they were going to vote if elections were held now. For single seat constituencies, 26 percent said they would vote for LDP, while 25 percent opted for DPJ candidates. And for proportional representation, DPJ was shown to be maintaining a slight edge.

As a result, it is still unclear that the fallout of political scandals and foul remarks by ruling party politicians is going to have such a negative impact on LDP that the prime minister is left with no other option but to submit his resignation. But much will definitely depend on how various political groupings try to take advantage of the situation in the days leading to the July 29 elections.

Monzurul Huq is a columnist of The Daily Star.