The Democratic Action Party (DAP), gearing up for snap polls expected very soon, said yesterday the pair were existing party members who had the right to stand for election, despite their indefinite detention.

'It's basically up to them. If they agree, we will nominate them,' party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said, adding that he had yet to hear from the pair via their lawyers.

Racial tensions are expected to cost the ruling coalition votes at the next election, after more than 10,000 minority ethnic Indians took to the streets last November, accusing the government of discrimination.

Anti-government protests are generally outlawed in Malaysia, and police broke up the rally in the capital. Later, the government detained five organisers, including DAP members M. Manoharan and B. Ganabathi Rao.

Both are top leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), which organised the November protest. Indian support for the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition has been weakened.

There has been speculation since that the DAP could capitalise on the dissent within the Indian community, which makes up about 7 per cent of the population, by endorsing the two leaders, both lawyers, as candidates.

They are being held at a detention centre in Kamunting, Perak, for those deemed security threats, but the DAP says that without being charged or convicted of any offences in a court, they remain eligible to contest elections from behind bars.

Mr Lim said there was a precedent from 1978, when the DAP nominated for re-election two lawmakers who had been detained under the same law, the colonial-era Internal Security Act.

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, when asked on Saturday about reports that Hindraf supporters were calling for their leaders to be fielded in the general election, said: 'Anyone who is eligible can contest, but the candidate should represent an organisation that is registered to contest in the elections.'

There is widespread expectation that he would call elections next month, a year earlier than he would have to.

But Datuk Seri Abdullah concedes the Indian community could deliver a protest vote against the coalition, whose minority Indian partner came under heavy attack during the November protest.

'Yes, I think votes will be affected somewhat,' he said in an interview published in the Sunday Star newspaper.

REUTERS