Greece's George Papandreou, after battling against the odds to steer his country through the debt typhoon, quit this week after a failed gamble to call a referendum on a bailout package.
In Italy, 75-year-old Silvio Berlusconi has survived dozens of challenges over sex scandals and alleged financial sleaze - but on Tuesday it was the bond markets that claimed his hair-implanted scalp as the country's borrowing costs scaled untenable heights.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel so far has kept her centre-right coalition together. But she has lost a string of elections at state level and opinion polls point to deep dislike of her role, as Europe's paymaster, in bailing out sick eurozone partners. Her ally, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, is plumbing near-record levels of unpopularity ahead of elections next April and May.
An exception seems to be the British Conservative-Liberal Government, which was elected on a manifesto of economic reform last year and is sticking doggedly to belt-tightening. But it remains, for now, out of the eye of the storm, as it is not one of the 17 countries that have adopted the single European currency.
At the same time, though, anti-European Union nationalist parties in Denmark, Finland and France have surged in popularity and a loose network of anti-capitalist youth protesters, called the Indignants, is staging sporadic demonstrations in European cities.
Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels thinktank, commented that the domino departures were a symptom of systemic political failure. He called it a "crisis of the sovereign", meaning people felt adrift and powerless as their countries no longer had control of a national currency, a vital economic lever.
"This is a crisis of the state. It is the legitimacy and authority of the state that now is on the losing end as the endgame of the eurozone's survival has started," he wrote.
Vincenzo Scarpetta, an analyst at the Open Europe thinktank in London, said discredited politicians risked being replaced by unelected technocrats.
In Greece, a former vice-president of the European Central Bank , Lucas Papademos, has been appointed interim Premier to replace the colourful Papandreou and the flamboyant Berlusconi is tipped to be followed by Mario Monti, an economist who was a European commissioner.
Such appointments will reassure the bond and stock markets, which are in turmoil, according to Scarpetta.
"When you have a Government of technocrats, this is a defeat for the people's sovereignty and for national democracy as well. It is like acknowledging that your politics and your politicians are not good enough to handle the situation and you have to resort to some sort of technocrats to take over power," Scarpetta told the Weekend Herald.
"The markets move much faster than politics. It's a reality that one cannot change."
Beyond immediate crisis-handling, some politicians are admitting the euro needs an overhaul. It has to be more responsive and accountable and hence more acceptable to the public, in their view.
Ideas include changes to the Maastricht Treaty that underpins the single currency so spendthrifts such as Greece and Italy do not drag better-managed partners over the cliff.
Merkel and Sarkozy this week were reported to have discussed the creation of a two-tier Europe, comprising northern countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, which would meet tough budget guidelines, and southern countries with greater spending flexibility.
These reports were downplayed or denied, which is not surprising given that such changes could split the euro into two currencies. And the treaty changes would require acrimonious debate when Europe so desperately needs stability.
