Keadilan vice-president Tian Chua today announced his candidacy for the Lunas state seat in Kedah, sparking rumours of a possible resignation by party comrade and incumbent state assemblyperson Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.

Contacted this evening, Tian Chua confirmed his candidacy for the Lunas seat as well as the Batu parliamentary seat in Kuala Lumpur.

"There has been a change of strategy. Our main strategy now is to take over Kedah so we are fielding our heavyweights here," he said.

Tian Chua, who was visiting Lunas, said the decision was reached after consideration by the party on how to boost the Barisan Altenatif's standing in the northern state.

In total, Keadilan has been allocated five parliamentary seats and nine state seats in Kedah. Coalition partner PAS will fight in the rest of the seats.

Umno or PAS?

However, the new arrangement may have cause fissure within the party leading to rumours that Saifuddin, also a party vice-president, may leave the party in protest over his removal from Lunas.

Saifuddin secured the seat for Keadilan in November 2000 in one of the most bitterly fought by-election in recent history.

With the Anwar Ibrahim trials fresh in the public mind, he beat BN candidate S Anthonysamy with a slim majority of 530 votes out of the 20,000-odd votes cast.

Lunas is a mixed constituency with 44 percent Malay, 31 percent Chinese and 24 percent Indian voters.

Of late, speculation has been abound over possible departure of Saifuddin to either Umno or PAS.

Lending credence to the rumours was Saifuddin's meeting with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi 10 days ago though later he claimed later that the meeting was to discuss Anwar's health.

It was also learnt that the Keadilan vice-president had held discussions with PAS over the possibility of him contesting with the party should he not be fielded in Lunas.

Saifuddin, who was an ex-assistant secretary of Umno Youth, has however consistently denied that he would rejoin his former party.

Repeated attempts to contact Saifuddin were unsuccessful.

Challenging the MB

Questioned about these alleged goings-on, Tian Chua dismissed the rumours saying that "no such thing" was afoot.

"All these things are said to create an impression that there is something going on in Keadilan," he said.

Tian Chua said Keadilan's strategy was to field Saifuddin in two other Kedah seats - the Padang Serai parliament seat and the Kubang Rotan state seat against Mentri Besar Syed Razak Syed Zain.

"The Lunas state seat falls under the Padang Serai parliamentary constituency. From our studies, Saifuddin has maximised the Malay votes so with me in Lunas, we can increase the chances of him winning the parliament seat as well," he said.

In 1999, Saifuddin was trounced in Padang Serai by MCA's Lim Bee Kau by a 9,372-vote majority. The constituency is made up of 52 percent Malay, 24 percent Chinese and 22 percent Indian voters.

In addition, Tian Chua said Saifuddin would also be a strong candidate to challenge Syed Razak, whom he claimed is in a precarious position because of factional fighting within Umno Kedah.

Syed Razak fought off his PAS challenger Kassim Mat Isa in 1999 by 1,985 votes, or 14 percent of votes cast.