The cause of the bickering between the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) presidential hopefuls is the party's unfair and ineffective candidate selection system, analysts say. The DPP's regulations clearly state that candidates for all public positions, including those of president and vice president, are selected by means of a vote between party members and a public opinion poll. While the party member vote counts for 30 percent of a hopeful's "total score," the opinion poll contributes the remaining 70 percent. However, three of the party's presidential hopefuls -- Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) -- prefer to see the candidate agreed upon via negotiations. DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun is the sole dissenter. Yu, who has arguably used party resources to shore up his support base, says that the rights of party members must be protected. Su counters that careful mediation will help maintain party unity. Hsieh has said he prefers negotiation but is happy to resort to the party's selection system. Confident Lu is so confident of her abilities that she claims her competitors will drop out of the race after public debates are held and their true colors are revealed. Lu, however, is the only one of the four who has decided to skip a televized debate organized by a pro-independence group, the Taiwan Society, on Saturday. She says she will attend the two debates held by her party next month. Frustrated by the bickering among the four aspirants, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who has called two rounds of mediation, has said that he is open to the idea of selecting the candidate via a primary. If there is any consensus at all among the four hopefuls, it is that public debates are necessary. But why is the DPP seemingly so afraid of a primary? Some argue that the process could undermine party unity, but analysts say that the real problem is that the system is unfair. Shih Cheng-feng ( 施正鋒 ), a public administration professor at Tamkang University, says that the DPP's nomination system has undergone five major changes since its introduction in 1986. The party altered the system in 1996 when the first direct presidential election was held. The new system mimics the US' direct primary elections by allowing party members and supporters to have a say in the selection process. The system has been criticized, however, because some candidates have mobilized their supporters to cast votes at campaign rallies. Critics argue that this can create a false impression of a candidate's popularity. No negotiation or primary was held ahead of the 2000 presidential election because Chen was the party's sole candidate. And Chen was not challenged from within the party in his successful re-election bid in 2004. The worth of a nomination system is not determined by the degree to which it is democratic, but by the extent to which it is fair to prospective candidates and effective in selecting the best candidate, Shih said. "What's most important is that the system should unite the party and select the candidate with the best chance of winning," he said. Shih said the DPP's nomination system is a facade and that factions determine the real outcome. Faction-backed candidates are believed to inflate their votes. What undermines the system further, in Shih's opinion, is that people not affiliated with the party are allowed to vote. "Unless a primary is governed by rules established by the state, the credibility of opinion polls conducted by political parties is highly questionable," he said. Chen Yen-hui (陳延輝), a professor at the Graduate Institute of Political Science at National Taiwan Normal University, said that the DPP is not so much afraid of a primary as it is desirous of seeking the maximum media exposure for its four hopefuls. "There is no hurry to pick the candidate because once the person is chosen, he or she will become an easy target for opposition parties," he said. Timetable The DPP's timetable states that party members will vote on the presidential candidate on May 6, if negotiations fail to achieve a result. The party will then conduct public opinion polls and announce its candidate on May 30. Chen Yen-hui said he is not totally against the idea of deciding the candidate through mediation because democratic politics is about negotiations and compromises. However, public debates must be held so that potential candidates can make their positions clearly known, he said. He does not think a primary will necessarily undermine party harmony provided the contenders stick to policy issues and refrain from making personal attacks. He is also in favor of excluding pan-blue supporters from the opinion polls and criticized some candidates for mobilizing bogus voters to create a false impression of their popularity. Chen Yen-hui argued that the party chairperson should be first in line to run in major elections, including the presidential polls. He proposed that the DPP produce a ranking table of party members in a bid to settle disputes concerning the selection of presidential candidates. Shih, however, disagreed, saying this "will bring us back to square one."