Pig farming and the Nipah epidemic would be a key issue for the Teluk Kemang by-election, as the constituency encompasses Lukut, where many pig farmers live and have suffered huge losses from the disease that wiped out many farms last year.

DAP secretary-general Kerk Kim Hock said today that the government has not been consistent on its pig-farming policy and neglected the interest of the pig farmers.

"The government has not even compensated the extra RM70 for each of the pigs culled in the Nipah outbreak," he said.

The government has promised to the pig farmers before the general elections last November that they will get the additional money on top of the RM50 per pig already paid.

Furthermore, the government has asked pig farmers to consider shifting the pig rearing to foreign countries despite that many of them have remained unemployed and could not resume pig farming.

However, Kerk felt that the by-election would still be an uphill battle for them, especially that the Barisan Nasional had won the seat since 1974.

The by-election was necessary following the death of Telok Kemang MP S. R. Anpalagan, last Friday. The BN candidate from MIC defeated N. Gobalakrishnan from KeADILan who ran under the DAP banner by a majority of 9,942 in last November polls.

"The DAP grassroots and the public would prefer DAP to field a strong candidate for Teluk Kemang by-election to enhance the winning chance since it is a BN stronghold," Kerk told malaysiakini .

Three candidates - chairman DAP Lim Kit Siang, deputy chairman Karpal Singh and deputy secretary-general M. Kulasegaran - have been proposed by DAP members.

Kerk said that the party will wait for the Negeri Sembilan committee to send in names of other candidates and a final decision will be made on May 11.

According to the voters records, in 1999, Teluk Kemang has 67,187 voters, Malays accounting for about 45.4 percent, Chinese 23.9 percent, Indians 20.1 percent, and others 0.6 percent.