After strong indications last week that he would switch districts, Ozawa Ichiro has announced that he will be running in Iwate’s fourth district instead of switching to Tokyo’s twelfth district, where he would run against Komeito president Ota Akihiro. I can only imagine the communication between the DPJ and Komeito in advance of Ozawa’s decision.

The DPJ will presumably still field a candidate in the twelfth — or support a candidate from another opposition party — but not running Ozawa against Ota will at least leave open the possibility of a DPJ-Komeito rapprochement in the wake of a DPJ victory.

One way or another, a DPJ-Komeito partnership will take time to forge, but at least it won’t be poisoned by Ozawa’s having run against (and unseated) Komeito’s president.