Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) claimed victory in upper house parliamentary elections on Sunday, but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to push ahead with certain legislative priorities, including revising the country’s pacifist constitution.

According to the Asahi Shimbun daily, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc and its junior partner, the Komeito Party, secured 71 out of the 124 seats up for grabs in Sunday's election. 

The LDP, which holds 70 uncontested seats, needed to win 53 seats on Sunday to keep a simple majority of the 245 seats in the bicameral parliament’s less powerful upper house, the House of Councilors.

However, the ruling bloc failed to win the 85 upper house seats that would have provided them a two-thirds supermajority and better enabled them to push through Abe’s stated desire to revise Japan’s constitution.

Abe remains four parliamentary seats short of the supermajority benchmark when other parties and independent lawmakers supportive of his position are taken into account.

Japan's upper house renews half of its seats every three years and its members serve six-year terms.