Now there's an idea

In Japan, when the Prime Minister's party suffers a humiliating defeat at the polls pressure is brought upon him to resign:

TOKYO, July 30 — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resisted calls today to resign after a devastating defeat in Sunday’s election for the upper house of Parliament, insisting that Japanese voters still supported his policies.
Mr. Abe rejected the urging of opposition politicians, newspaper editorials and even members of his own Liberal Democratic Party that he step down in keeping with a practice followed by past prime ministers. He attributed his party’s loss to public anger over scandals and a record-keeping problem related to national pensions, and not to a rejection of his administration’s overall policies...

Benefiting from the anger against Mr. Abe’s party, the main opposition Democratic Party seized control of the upper house for the first time, and will be able to direct, delay and block legislation.

Yukio Hatoyama, the Democratic Party’s secretary general, said that voters had emphatically stated that they lack confidence in Mr. Abe’s administration.

“If the prime minister tries to stay despite the people’s judgment, the Democratic Party will have to take some kind of action,” Mr. Hatoyama said, indicating that the party would force a dissolution of the lower house and a general election.

Three of Japan’s five national newspapers also wrote that Mr. Abe had lost the popular mandate. The Asahi urged Mr. Abe to step down, reporting that 56 percent of respondents in exit polls said they wanted him to do so. The Nikkei and Mainichi said he should dissolve the lower house and call a general election.

Several heavyweight lawmakers in Mr. Abe’s party were also quoted in newspapers saying that he should quit.
“Prime Minister Abe should resign,” Shigeru Ishiba, a former head of the defense ministry, said in an article in the Yomiuri Newspaper whose content was confirmed by his office. “Otherwise, the Liberal Democratic Party is finished.”

In 1998, then Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto resigned after winning only 44 out of 126 seats in an upper house election; in 1989, Prime Minister Sousuke Uno stepped down after winning only 36 seats out of 126, the lowest number ever recorded. On Sunday, Mr. Abe won only 37 out of 121 seats...