The Liberal Democratic Party caved Wednesday to a demand from its junior coalition partner, New Komeito, and agreed not to put contentious postal privatization bills to a vote in the House of Representatives this week.
The two parties made the deal during a meeting of their Diet affairs chiefs. New Komeito had been urging the LDP to abandon its goal of moving the bills through the Lower House by the end of the week, due to concerns it could negatively affect Sunday's Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election.
Poor election results on the part of the ruling coalition would boost the position of opposition parties as well as many LDP members who oppose postal privatization.
The LDP Executive Council endorsed a watered-down version of the privatization bills Tuesday, paving the way for a Diet vote.
The party now hopes to get the legislation through the Lower House by July 6, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi departs to attend the annual Group of Eight summit in Britain.
But it has to walk a tightrope between the opponents of the bills within the LDP and the opposition, which is expected to take to stalling tactics, including submitting no-confidence motions.
In a related development Wednesday, Kiyoshi Sasamori, chairman of the Japan Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), and two postal workers filed a suit with the Tokyo District Court, claiming the privatization bills violate a 1998 law on reorganization of the central government.