KeADILan will be fielding its candidate for the Teluk Kemang by-election although it has been earlier speculated that DAP would be representing Barisan Alternatif against Barisan Nasional's MIC.

According to a source, the candidate's name and the banner to be used - either KeADILan or DAP - would be announced by Opposition Leader and PAS president Fadzir Noor this Sunday.

KeADILan will most probably field its Negeri Sembilan head and information chief Ruslan Kassim.

It has been reported that DAP and KeADILan were at loggerheads over who to field in the by-election. Joining the fray in Teluk Kemang is another KeADILan breakaway group Parti Reformasi Insan Malaysia (Prim), represented by its protem secretary general, P. Uthayakumar.

According to a reliable source within KeADILan, its deputy president Dr. Chandra Muzaffar has put his foot down on not giving the seat to DAP, under whose banner KeADILan supreme council member N. Gopalakrishnan fought and lost in the November general elections.

"It was said that if KeADILan is not allowed to fight the seat, KeADILan might withdraw from the BA coalition," the source said.

The source pointed out that the seat allocations was discussed by Chandra with other BA leaders during the last general elections, and some quarters had faulted Chandra for not fighting hard enough to obtain more seats for KeADILan.

Another source from BA also admitted that the fight for the seat has been seen as a "do or die" battle for Chandra, for if the seat was surrendered to DAP, the party's No. 2 would open himself to attacks from members.

On the argument as to which party the seat originally belongs to, the source within the KeADILan claimed that the allocation has been settled during the last elections, that Teluk Kemang belonged to KeADILan but it could use the DAP banner.

According to an informal analysis, while about 50 percent of Malay and Chinese have voted for BA in last general elections, the majority of Indian voters backed BN in the Teluk Kemang parliamentary seat.

Initially it was speculated that DAP deputy secretary general M. Kulasegaran will be fielded by DAP after it was learnt that party's chairman Lim Kit Siang and vice-chairman Karpal Singh were not interested in the seat.

The nominations for the by-election will be held on May 30 and polling on June 10. The by-election is being held following the death of the BN's S.A. Anpalagan, who was Health Ministry's parliamentary secretary.

Anpalagan won the seat in last November's with a majority of 9,942 votes, making it a tough seat for BA to wrest.

According to the voters records, Teluk Kemang has 66,646 voters, with Malays accounting for about 45.44 percent, Chinese 33.23 percent, Indians 20.64 percent, and others 0.7 percent.