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DPP bigwigs fail to reach agreement

"It will be a sign that we cannot stand and fight together if this coordination fails. I sincerely hope that our relationship will not be affected because of this because our enemies are out there, not inside the DPP."

Su Tseng-chang, premier

President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) effort on Friday night to mediate a solution among the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) four presidential hopefuls failed as party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun stuck to his guns, insisting that a primary be held to determine the party's presidential candidate next year.

With no results achieved at Friday's meeting, Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) said Chen would invite the four bigwigs to a new round of talks on Tuesday.

Chen invited Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), Yu and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to a meeting at his official residence on Friday night to seek a way out of the DPP nomination fray.

It was the first such meeting since the four aspirants completed their registration earlier this week for the party's presidential primary.

During the hour-long meeting, Lu, Su and Hsieh conceded that the presidential candidate could be named through negotiations, rather than a primary election, sources said, adding that Yu was the only one who disagreed.

Yu told reporters yesterday that it would be quite difficult for the president to mediate a solution because "everybody's policies are very different."

Yu said he understood that the president hoped to simplify the nomination process.

"However, our policies are all different, so there are four voices. Each one of them is valuable," Yu said. "I insisted that we should screen the best candidate for the DPP through a primary."

"I will, however, support the winner of the primary if I do not win," Yu said, adding that as friends and party associates for decades, he believed the competition "will be clean and fair."

Yu also defended his support for a pimary, saying he had no intention of disrupting party unity.

"I believe that the party can only be united if the candidate is produced by a democratic system," he said, while urging the other three to sign a pledge stating they would not withdraw from the party if they failed to win the party's nomination.

Lu yesterday refused to describe the meeting as "a negotiation."

"The president only asked the four of us to win the 2008 presidential election, no matter which one of us becomes the DPP's candidate," Lu said. "We only shared our views. It was not really a negotiation."

"I have been the vice president for seven years. I think it would not be a ridiculous request to ask for a chance to let this country have a female president," she added.

Su, expressing confidence in his chance to represent the party, said that the DPP would lose the election if negotiations failed.

"It will be a sign that we cannot stand and fight together if this coordination fails," Su said. "I sincerely hope that our relationship will not be affected because of this because our enemies are out there, not inside the DPP."

Party cooperation and harmony should be the priority, he added.

"If the DPP fails, every DPP member will fail," he said.

Hsieh said yesterday that he totally agreed with the president's idea of using negotiations rather than a primary to choose a candidate.

Chiou said that if mediation continued to fail, a primary would be held to settle the issue.

Based on the DPP's charter, a party primary should be held if negotiations fail.

Party members will vote on May 6, after which a series of public opinion polls will be conducted. Party members' votes are weighted to comprise 30 percent of a candidate's score, with public polls accounting for the remaining 70 percent. The presidential aspirant who receives the highest approval rating will be named as the party's presidential candidate on May 30.

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