Hsieh is expected to make his choice right after Ma does, and it’s all but certain Yeh Chu-lan, a Hakka-born former vice premier, will be on the DPP ticket for 2008.

Both Hsieh and Yeh visited Hsinpu to rally Hakka support yesterday. Supporters urged Hsieh to name her his running mate.

He didn’t give an answer, saying “I’ll seriously consider that problem.”

The DPP standard bearer dithered, because President Chen Shui-bian is said to be trying to get former Premier Su Tseng-chang to run for vice president.

Press reports quoted sources close to the president as saying Chen “is arranging a Hsieh-Su ticket.” They added Chen and Hsieh met “not long ago” for a talk over the DPP ticket.

Asked to comment on the reports, Hsieh only said he could not disclose what he had talked about with the president.

Though he did not tell his Hakka supporters, Hsieh has already decided to ask Yeh to join him in the presidential race. “He will make an announcement after Ma does,” a top Hsieh aide said.

Ma will announce his choice before he is formally nominated as the Kuomintang presidential candidate at a party congress scheduled for June 24.

President Chen seems to keep Su Tseng-chang under the limelight as a possible running mate for Hsieh.

Chen conferred a medal of the Order of Propitious Clouds Class 1 on Su in the morning. Su was also commissioned as a special envoy to attend the funeral of Malawi’s first lady Ethel Mutharika.

She died on Monday, and her funeral takes place on Saturday.

Su will leave for Johannesburg en route to Lilongwe tomorrow. He will return to Taipei on June 13.

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