As it now stands, the special law says that only serving members of Parliament can run for prime minister if a prime minister quits.

"In any normal country, a minister would quit after such an insult," a Russian diplomat said.

At the same time, the Maoists, when not beheading police officers in a campaign of terror, also insisted that the prime minister quit.

But on Monday, at his direction, his party's six ministers quit the Maliki cabinet.

But the response that he finally unveiled was so widely seen as inadequate that two ministers - including Hannan Ashrawi, an internationally prominent figure - quit in protest.

He thought that the war was a mistake for France and he used several opportunities to ask the French ministers to simply quit the war.

And the minister quitted the cabinet, leaving in the hands of the musketeer the ring and the twenty thousand livres.

Three Kenyan ministers have quit, and the police have seized the passports of officials linked to graft allegations chronicled in a 36-page dossier he compiled after his self-exile.

"Two ministers quit $715,000 jobs," a front-page headline in the leading daily newspaper read on Monday.

The Italian minister, Mr. Calderoli, quit under protest, warning against an Islamic "attack on the West."