LONDON: Former Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a candidate to be the EU's first president, stepped up Wednesday her attack on the selection process and challenged her male rivals to a open contest. Vike-Freiberga, who was former communist eastern Europe's firstfemale head of state after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, also said she was furious at suggestions that the post should go to a male. "Those people who say that should wash their mouths out with soap," Vike-Freiberga told The Times. "As far as I am concerned they are voicing the deepest and most objectionable prejudice against women. "They are saying that we do not have qualified women around and I resent that. It is a lie and we should all protest against that because it implies that somehow talent was distributed only to those with one kind of chromosome." European leaders will hold a special summit on Thursday to choose the president and a foreign policy supremo, both created under the new Lisbon reform treaty. One of the few openly declared candidates for the post of president, Vike-Freiberga reiterated her criticism that the posts were being decided behind closed doors in Soviet-style secrecy. "It should be more transparent," she said, pledging to make an open process part of her programme as president. "The first step would be to stop hiding behind their fans and come out and say they would be ready to take the job. "They should say they are a candidate, not just to 27 (the EU leaders) but to the whole of Europe so its citizens know what?s going on." The European Union's Swedish presidency has been struggling to find consensus candidates for the two jobs. Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy had been favourite to take up the presidency. Others mentioned include Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and his Luxembourg counterpart Jean-Claude Juncker. Former premier Tony Blair remains Britain's candidate for the post. Vike-Freiberga, who speaks English, French, German and Spanish in addition to Latvian, steered Latvia into the EU and NATO in 2004.