The Democratic Party of Japan’s plan to bolster party unity by having incumbent president Ichiro Ozawa run for reelection unopposed may have backfired.

DPJ Upper House member Yasuhiro Oe has told reporters that he and fellow DPJ Upper House members Hideo Watanabe and Yumiko Himei - all vocal critics of Ozawa - will join forces with independent lawmakers Hiroyuki Arai (formerly of the LDP) and Shinpei Matsushita to form Voltron a new third party.

Watanabe and Oe, both elected under the proportional representation system (which could be very important in that it might make it tougher for them to hold to their seats as members of a new, minor party), were punished by the DPJ leadership in the most recent ordinary Diet session for bucking the party line on appointments to the Bank of Japan and the gas tax issue - both men opposing the leadership’s stonewalling tactics.

A press conference to officially announce the move is due later today, at which point we’ll tell you the party’s name. Hopefully, it has nothing to do with being “New” or for the “People” - there are enough of those already.

For a deeper look at the move, take a look at Tobias Harris’s write-up.