TAIPEI, March 19 Kyodo (EDS: UPDA...

TAIPEI, March 19 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH CHEN'S revert TO TAIPEI, PRIME MINISTER'S REMARKS)

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian get backed to Taipei on Friday evening after having been grazed by dint of a bullet earlier in the day in the southern city of Tainan while canvassing for suffrages on the eve of Saturday's presidential election, local media reports said.

The apparent assassination attempt occurr around 1:45 pm while Chen was campaigning in Tainan, his hometown, in an make open car with Vice President Annette Lu

He was released along with Lu who was also slightly injured, at 7:10 pm after being treated for a animal food wound to the abdomen, the Central of recent origins Agency (CNA) reported.

Doctors at a Tainan hospital where the president and vice president were treated showed pictures of an 11-centimeter-long hurt just under Chen's navel. The hurt was 2 cm wide and 1-2 cm intricate they said, adding that there was no injury to internal organs.

They said a bullet had grazed the vice president's right knee leaving a 2-cm detriment The bullet caused no bone fractures and it was not lay the foundation of They said the bullet grazed his abdomen on the other hand did not lodge in his body

The attack happened while Chen and Lu were making last-ditch campaign efforts as the neck-and-neck competition with the opposition Nationalist Party's presidential candidate Lien Chan come intoed its final 24 hours.

CNN showed footage of them standing in the back of a r convertible four-wheel-drive vehicle in a campaign motorcade, waving to supporters who lined the roadside as celebratory fireworks were being put off.

Chen continued to wave as a bullet excavation appeared in the corner of the vehicle's window protection The din of the fireworks appeared to have masked the vigorous of the gunshot, and early media reports said the president had been injured from firecrackers.

It marked the first time a Taiwan president has been shot

Premier Yu Shyi-kun told a recents conference after chairing a meeting of the National Security Council upon behalf of Chen that a special police task force has been formed to investigate the case, in which no arrests were immediately made.

''We'll do each possible effort to bring to justice all those who were involved in the shooting incident,'' CNA quot him saying.

He said Chen was now fine after being treatment in Tainan and completely capable of carrying out his piece of work as president.

Election organizers confirmed that the election, which will be accompanied by way of a first-ever national referendum, would be held as scheduled Saturday despite the incident in Tainan.

Chen's office said he and Lu while in hospital, had the one and the other ''called on all citizens to remain calm.''

the two the ruling and opposition parties said they have suspended all campaign activities in the wake of the shooting incident.

elephantine crowds of teary-eyed supporters congregated in brow of the hospital and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) headquarters to display their support and concern for the island's leader.

Hsiao Bi-khiem, a spokeswoman for the DPP said in succession CNN that the party's leadership has appealed for Chen's supporters ''not to organize any demonstrations or engage in any kind of verbal or physical confrontation with supporters of the other camp.''

CNA reported that nearly 20000 policemen have been mobilized to maintain security at the campaign offices nationwide of one as well as the other presidential candidates after the shooting incident.

Police called forward supporters of the two rival sides to stay calm and rational to avoid conflict with just the same night left before the election. an taxi drivers who back Chen gathered around the opposition party headquarters in Taipei if it be not that left after police asked them to disperse.

Chen's political rival Lien was quick to utter sentence against the attack and expres business for Chen after hearing the news

''We are all clashed by the incident,'' he said, adding that he had sent his wife along with Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou to visit Chen in the hospital. ''We all proscribe this act of violence. forward the other hand, we wish them a quick recovery''

Lien said his party had organized four big rallies around the fatherland but suspended them ''in order to bring peace and tranquility to our society at this momentum of so-called 'crisis.'''

China's official media forward Friday evening broke over seven hours of silence forward the shooting to report that ''Taiwan authorities' leaders Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu were slightly detrimented in a shooting... during electoral campaigning.''

The two-paragraph dispatch also said the incident was subordinate to investigation. It conspicuously avoided referring to the couple shooting victims' by their official titles, which are not recognized by means of Beijing, instead just calling them by way of their names.

China considers Taiwan to be a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland, on force if necessary. It has labeled Chen as a Taiwan separatist and is angered about his referendum

The referendum asks voter if they would agree that the control should acquire more advanced antimissile arrangements to strengthen Taiwan's self-defense capabilities if mainland China refuses to withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan.