The bid to postpone the vote was supported by MPs of the Labor Party, the Order and Justice party, and the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, indicating a sharp split from the fourth ruling party, the Social Democrats.
The opposition censured the move, saying it was an attempt to couple the vote on Uspaskich's immunity with the one on 2013 national budget, a law that the Social Democrats need desperately to pass.
"This is a political bazaar, as the budget vote is scheduled for Thursday, and the Labor Party is using blackmail, as it does not want the immunity vote on Thursday either," Eligijus Masiulis, the elder of the Liberal Movement's parliamentary group, said.
Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, was also astonished by the conduct of the coalition partners. Earlier in the day, he guaranteed that nothing would change the Social Democrats' determination to vote in support of stripping the three Labor MPs of their immunity.
The request to cancel Uspaskich's legal immunity, that he acquired after he was elected into parliament, has been made by the Prosecutor General's Office.
Viktor Uspaskich, Vytautas Gapšys, and Vitalija Vonžutaitė are standing trial in Vilnius Regional Court for organizing fraudulent bookkeeping while holding executive positions in the party in 2004-2006. They are charged with fraud. In addition to the three MPs, charges were brought against the Labor Party itself and its former accountant Marina Liutkevičienė.
According to case information, the Labor Party failed to include 25.12 million litas (EUR 7.3m) of income and 23.7 million litas of spending into its books in 2004-2006, thus evading 3.89 million litas in taxes and fees.
The accused strongly deny the accusations, saying the case against them is politically motivated.
