Tokyo ? Fresh off a spectacular election win, Japan’s opposition on Monday demanded that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resign, opposed his support of U.S. foreign policy and promised to gain leadership of the world’s second-largest economy.

A defiant Abe clung to his job despite Sunday’s humiliating loss in parliamentary elections, warning of a political vacuum if he were to quit and instead announcing he would make changes soon in his scandal-riddled Cabinet.

“I cannot run away now,” Abe told reporters as he dismissed mounting public pressure to step down for losing the majority in parliament’s upper house. “We cannot afford a political vacuum.”