The contentious postal privatization bills that forced the Sept. 11 election sailed through the Lower House on Tuesday with full support from the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling bloc and many ex-LDP members who voted against the legislation in July.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='200' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='/images/photos2005/nn20051012a1a.jpg' WIDTH='200' HEIGHT='119'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>Prime minister Junichiro Koizumi expresses his gratitude in the Diet Tuesday after the Lower House passed the postal privatization bills. </B></FONT></TD> </TR> <TABLE> </PHOTO> <PARAGRAPH>The bills passed 338 to 138 and were immediately submitted to the Upper House, which will enter deliberation on them Wednesday.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The bills' smooth passage through the House of Representatives contrasted sharply with July 5, when they cleared the plenary session by a margin of five votes after 37 LDP lawmakers joined the opposition camp to oppose the legislation.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The bills are expected to be approved Friday by the House of Councilors as postal rebels in the chamber cave in to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's popular support.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Tuesday's approval gives Koizumi a mandate to proceed with his postal reforms, which will slim down the state payroll and create the world's largest private bank.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Koizumi called the snap election on Aug. 8, the same day the Upper House killed his postal privatization bills. The election became a plebiscite on postal privatization.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'It was good' that the bills were passed in the Lower House, Koizumi told reporters Tuesday evening, noting the lawmakers recognized the public mandate reflected in the election.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The LDP, purged of most of its antireform rebels, won the September poll by a landslide, capturing 327 seats, or more than two-thirds of the 480-seat Lower House, in conjunction with its junior coalition partner, New Komeito.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Given the huge support, 11 of the 13 former LDP rebels in the Lower House, including ex-postal minister Seiko Noda and former trade minister Mitsuo Horiuchi, supported the bills this time despite campaigning against them during the election. The 13 were forced to run as independents in the Sept. 11 general election and were re-elected.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Noda, apparently wanting to return to the LDP, explained over the weekend that she must admit that her argument against the bills failed. She left the Diet after the vote without commenting to reporters.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Horiuchi told reporters that he supported the bills this time because to do so reflects 'the will of the people.'</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The LDP will decide whether to reinstate ex-members who voted against the bills in the Lower House and to punish those who voted against them in the Upper House after the package wins final Diet approval.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Of the 13 rebels, only former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma voted against the bills again. He told reporters that his vote was largely based on his sense of crisis over what he termed Koizumi's 'undemocratic' exercise of power to quash opponents of the reforms.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Former farm minister Hosei Norota, another former LDP rebel, boycotted Tuesday's Lower House plenary.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Several other ex-LDP rebels who had to leave the LDP and won re-election last month after forming new parties, also voted against the bills Tuesday.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'It must have been heart-rending for each' of the lawmakers who voted against the bills to support them this time, said former LDP policy affairs chief Shizuka Kamei, a reform foe who was re-elected after leaving the LDP to form Kokumin Shinto.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'This Diet session shouldn't have been convened, but the person in power –

got what he wanted by fair means or foul," Kamei said after the vote.

"It seems as if the 'age of civil wars' has been revived in modern society and I fear that democratized Japan will disappear."

Under the bills, Japan Post will be broken up into four entities -- overseeing mail delivery, insurance, savings and over-the-counter services -- that will be put under holding company control in October 2007.

The government will complete the privatization process by selling off its stakes in the postal insurance and savings entities by the end of September 2017.

The bills have not been amended except for delaying the start and completion of the privatization process by six months due to the need to resubmit the package.

The Lower House on Tuesday also voted down the Democratic Party of Japan's counterproposal to Koizumi's privatization bills that had called for privatizing the postal life insurance and scaling down postal savings. It also called for keeping the reduced postal savings and mail delivery under the state-owned Japan Post.

The DPJ believes it was trounced in the Sept. 11 election largely because it failed to submit to the Diet a counterproposal to Koizumi's reforms before the poll.