In an open letter to DPP members, the vice president described the primary, scheduled for Sunday as “twisted and warped” and said voting blocs have been formed against a candidate who “has gotten into the woods by mistake.”

Lu said she is that candidate and called for an end to the factional strife that “twisted and warped” what should be a normal primary to choose the DPP nominee for the presidential race in 2008.

The voting scheme is biased against her, the vice president said. The ruling party held only one primary to choose nominees for president and a new Legislative Yuan.

As a result, presidential hopefuls have made tie-ups with contestants in the legislative elections to form voting blocs, Lu said.

She is the only presidential candidate who has no such voting blocs.

“That is unfair,” the vice president said.

Moreover, Lu went on, some candidates have collected ID and party cards of members and have chartered buses to carry them to the polls in violation of the election law.

Though the primary is a party election, the vice president claimed, the election law should be invoked to probe the “rigging” and “vote-buying.”

“It is urgently necessary that prosecutors look into these election irregularities,” Lu urged.

Poll after popularity poll has shown the vice president trailing far behind two front-running presidential hopefuls, Premier Su Tseng-chang and his predecessor Frank Hsieh. She is only a couple of percentage points ahead of another contender DPP chairman Yu Shyi-kun.

According to one poll for the primary, Lu is supported by 10 percent of the DPP members. But the outcome of the primary accounts for 30 percent of the score needed to win the nomination for president. The other 70 percent will be supplied by the voting in an in-house poll scheduled for May 10.

The vice president favors the straw poll, which she said should be called after more policy debates among the four rivals.

In 1995, she said, more than a score policy debates took place before the party primary.

“We have had only three this time, and a third was held at my urging,” the vice president protested. “That’s not the way to select a good candidate for president,” she added.

Asked if she has tried to make an alliance with Frank Hsieh, the vice president said she has contacted no one for collaboration.

President Chen Shui-bian is said to have favored his premier as the nominee for 2008.

Did the vice president agree?

“I’ve asked the president for the nth time,” Lu said, “and he answered for the nth time that he has no one in particular to support.”

Lu was also asked if she believes the president. She said: “I have no right to opt for whether I believe or disbelieve.”

Obsessively self-confident, Lu characterized herself as the best candidate for president. She fought for Taiwan independence. “For that I stayed behind bars,” she said, adding: “I was shot at, and I did promote Taiwan’s cause in the world arena.

“The building master should not be changed while he is finishing just half of his work!”

Along with President Chen, Lu was shot at in Tainan on March 19, 2004, the leave of the last presidential election. The shooting was determined as an assassination attempt. Both were reelected on the following day.

Lu suggested she has begun her “building” work as vice president and is entitled to continue the work as the “building master.”

Despite her experience and qualifications, DPP supporters and voters at large are unlikely to be persuaded to vote for her, according to public opinion polls.

Hard as she may try, the odds are that the vice president will not be named to bear the DPP standard in March next year.

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