TOKYO (AP) — Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Cabinet resigned Wednesday to clear the way for a vote in parliament to formally install the nation's new leader, Shinzo Abe, a conservative whose nationalist positions have in the past angered Japan's neighbors.

Noda's fall ends more than three years at the helm for the left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan and brings back the more conservative, pro-big business Liberal Democratic Party, which governed Japan for most of the post-World War II era until voters fed up with scandals and Japan's sagging economy tossed them out in 2009.

In announcing the resignations, the chief government spokesman said the incoming government will face many tough issues and said he hoped they would deal with them "appropriately."

Capitalizing on the Democrats' failure to improve the economy and its perceived lack of strong leadership, Abe led the Liberal Democratic Party to victory in parliamentary elections Dec. 16. He was to be named prime minister later Wednesday. He was also prime minister in 2006-2007.

Abe has vowed to take bold measures to shore up the economy, deal with a swelling national debt and come up with a recovery plan following last year's devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crises.

"The Liberal Democratic Party has changed," he told a news conference Tuesday. "We are not the party we once were."

He has already named a roster of top party executives that includes two women — more than previous LDP administrations — and is younger than earlier ones, with three of the four in their 50s. He was expected to name his Cabinet after the parliamentary vote.

According to media reports, he will give the finance portfolio to another former prime minister, Taro Aso. Fumio Kishida, who is an expert on issues relating to frictions on the southern island of Okinawa between residents and nearly 20,000 US troops based there, will likely become foreign minister, and the defense minister was expected to be Itsunori Onodera, who was in Abe's previous administration.

The LDP governed Japan for decades after it was founded in 1955. Before it was ousted, the LDP was hobbled by scandals and its own problems getting key legislation through a divided parliament.

This time around, Abe has promised to make the economy his top priority and is expected to push for a 2 percent inflation target designed to fight a problem that was until recently relatively unique in the world — deflation, or continually dropping prices, which deadens economic activity. The Japanese economy has been stuck in deflation for two decades. Continued...