How Japan's election works

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan, the world's second largest economy, voted yesterday in a stinging rebuke for embattled conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The election involved the upper house of parliament and not the more powerful lower house, which selects the prime minister.

Abe insisted he would not quit, even through previous prime ministers resigned after less severe defeats in the upper house.

The election is for half of the 242-member upper house, formally known as the House of Councillors, whose members serve six-year terms.

Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its Buddhist-oriented coalition partner New Komeito needed to win 64 seats to preserve their majority. Projections early Monday said they fell well short with 44 seats, with a handful of seats still up for grabs.

But in the lower house, the ruling coalition holds 70 percent of seats thanks to a landslide victory won under Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi in 2005 elections.

The two-thirds majority means the lower house, formally known as the House of Representatives, could override no-votes by an opposition-led upper house. The government does not need to call a lower house election until 2009.

In every election, each Japanese is effectively voting twice -- for a candidate in his or her constituency and then for a party at the national level.

At the national level, the seats are divided up by party on a proportional representation system. In Sunday's election, 73 seats were for local constituencies and 48 were determined by proportional representation.

For the first time this year, Japanese living overseas are able to cast ballots for both parts. Previously, they could only vote in the proportional-representation section.

Some 104.55 million people aged 20 or over were eligible to vote.

More than 10 million cast absentee ballots, a new record, but turnout at stations was down one percent at 44.82 percent as of half an hour before the polls closed, according to the internal affairs ministry.