Yu Shyi-kun, chairman of the ruling party, calls himself the buffalo or to be more exact the water buffalo, that has long retired as the beast of burden in Taiwan.

The first to officially open the campaign office, Yu made “Taiwan Buffalo beats Chinese Horse” his slogan, China’s equine being Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang. Ma, meaning the horse, was born in Hong Kong in 1950 and came to Taipei with his Chinese mainlander father, who was a Kuomintang apparatchik.

“What is more important in the party primary is not how to win it but to know how the supporters perceive the very competition,” Chen told a special staff meeting at the Office of the President yesterday morning.

Chen witnessed Yu Shyi-kun and two DPP frontrunners battling it out in a policy debate sponsored by Taiwan Society Saturday. Like a wounded Cape buffalo, Yu attacked Premier Su Tseng-chang for attempting a palace coup to force Chen to step down as president if his wife were convicted at the first trial.

First lady Wu Shu-chen, indicted for corruption on November 13, is standing trial. She was charged with borrowing receipts from friends and relatives to claim a NT$14.8 reimbursement from a public fund under President Chen’s control for the conduct of “affairs of state.”

The president was not indicted, for he enjoys immunity against prosecution, but was regarded as an unindicted co-defendant who will be formally charged on leaving office.

Though he did not say in so many words, President Chen chided Yu for a relentless accusation of the premier, who, together with his predecessor Frank Hsieh, is most likely to be nominated.

In a previous mediation, President Chen wanted to persuade Yu to go along with his plan to let in-house polls pick the 2008 ticket. Yu insists that the party primary take place, albeit he has openly acquiesced to the Chen plan.

One reason Yu is adamantly opposed to the plan, under which the most favored candidate would run for president, with the runner-up as his running mate, is that he has no chance to beat Su and Hsieh in straw polls.

Appearing as a cowboy, complete with a Stetson hat but without a gun sling, Yu admitted he was no longer President Chen’s favorite.

At one time, rumor had it that President Chen, who weathered his worst political crisis last year with Yu’s strong support, had all but decided to name the DPP chairman now on leave to seek the nomination.

“For more than 30 years I have experienced the political vicissitudes,” Yu lamented, “and I fully understood, though I am said.”

However, Yu would fight on like the Taiwan buffalo he believes he is.

“I am a very honest man,” he went on. “I never lie,” he added, “and Heaven watches what everyone does.”

He referred to Su, who refuted him after Saturday’s policy debate, charging him with compelling Chen to make the promise to resign.

Chen did so in the full knowledge that the first trial may last a year or more. Moreover, he is asking the Council of Grand Justices to either suspend the trial of his wife or rule the “criminal questioning” to which he was subjected unconstitutional.

In fact, President Chen dumped Yu in favor of the premier simply because the latter has a much better chance to defeat a popular Ma Ying-jeou, who was forced to quit as chairman of the Kuomintang on February 13 after he had been indicted for corruption.

Ma will stand trial beginning on April 3.

Su and Hsieh enjoy a large lead in popularity polls over Yu and the last of the four contenders, Vice President Annette Lu.

“That’s why the president made a switch in the best interest of the party,” one source close to Chen said.

As none of the four would make a compromise, the source continued, President Chen is not going to resume the mediation at least for the time being.

Without Chen’s support, Yu is unlikely to win the party primary, which he still believes can be won so long as he sticks to his Taiwan independence fundamentalism.

As a matter of fact, Yu overdid President Chen in promising support to independence activists who form the majority of card-carrying members of the ruling party.

If elected president, Yu promised to revoke Chen’s “five no’s” pledge. Chen promised twice in as many inaugural speeches he would not declare independence, include the “two-nation” doctrine in the Constitution, change the title of the country, call a referendum on issues related to independence and abolish the National Unification Council.

All three other aspirants have either shunned the issue of independence or declared support for the improvement of relations between Taiwan and China.

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