THE outgoing Japanese Prime Minister can be forgiven for feeling weary after 555 tumultuous days in office.
During Tomiichi Murayama's tenure, which began in June 1994, the nation suffered a killer earthquake in Kobe, a gas attack on Tokyo's subways, banking failures, a lingering recession and disputes over US military presence after three US servicemen were accused of raping a schoolgirl in September.
Critics said Japan's woes were exacerbated by the weak leadership of the 18 month old left right coalition which linked the Socialists with the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the small Sakigake party.
Pressure on the septuagenarian prime minister to resign had been mounting, with Japanese media demanding he step down and hold general elections soon. Yesterday he obliged, saying it was time the country renewed its leadership line up, but he ruled out snap elections and promised to keep the same coalition in power.
Mr Murayama's sudden rise to the top 18 months ago surprised the nation. Many pundits predicted his tenure, like those of his two immediate predecessors, would be brief.
He was Japan's first socialist prime minister in 46 years and had no experience in governing or diplomacy. His party was composed of perennial opposition players who devoted their energies to howling at the LDP from the back benches. But Mr Murayama joined in what many called an unholy alliance with the Socialists' Cold War foes, the LDP.
Moves to freeze the Socialists out of the decision making process in the anti LDP group forced Mr Murayama to cross the aisle in the summer of 1994.
After taking office, he singlehandedly scrapped his party's traditional hard left tenets such as opposition to the US Japan security treaty, the country's post war military and the Rising Sun flag. He surprised critics by staying in power as the nominal head of a coalition that managed to push through parliament reforms in the electoral system and international trade agreements.
He suffered a disastrous foreign policy debut when he collapsed at the Naples summit of the industrialised nations just days after taking power.
But he subsequently won back some diplomatic points in three trips to Asia South Korea, south east Asian countries and then to Jakarta for the summit meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Co operation forum.
A virtual non entity in the international arena, Mr Murayama had concentrated on welfare and labour issues for over two decades until becoming leader of the Socialist Party in late 1993.
The fifth son of a fisherman from Oita Prefecture, southern Japan, he returned to Oita after graduating from Meiji University in Tokyo to work in the local fishermen's union. He won a seat on the city council at the age of 31, then became a prefectural legislator before entering national politics.