Following Keadilan's decision to field a former teacher to contest Barisan Nasional's retired headmistress at the Indera Kayangan by-election, the National Union of the Teaching Profession today said it will no longer express support for either candidate.

NUTP secretary-general N Siva Subramaniam said since both the candidates are former members of the union, there was no longer a need to comment about them.

"We had better keep quiet now," Siva told malaysiakini .

Asked if NUTP still maintained support for BN candidate Oui Ah Lan, he replied: "We are now supporting nobody".

The union will leave it to the voters to decide who the better candidate is, added Siva.

'Moral support'

Earlier, NUTP said it would be providing "moral support" to Oui on grounds that she was once a headmistress.

However, Keadilan's announcement of Khoo Yang Chong, a former teacher, as their candidate yesterday had complicated the union's position.

Explaining further, Siva said it was a principle of the 100,000-strong union to support any of their members contesting in elections, even if they represented opposition parties.

The by-election in the Perlis capital of Kangar is set for Jan 19, after a nine-day campaign period beginning today.

Chinese Malaysian and Malay Malaysian voters comprise 47.9 percent and 46.4 percent respectively with Indian Malaysian forming 5.3 percent and other races, 0.4 percent.

The by-election was called following the death of incumbent Khor Tiang Lee on Dec 19. Khor was the Perlis MCA chief.