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.