KUALA LUMPUR: MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu has declared that he would contest the top post for a record 11th term at the party's presidential election in March next year.

"I will not stop anyone from contesting the president's post.

"We are a democratic party. I am elected by popular vote, so it is the members who will decide.

"I will continue serving until the members say they don't want me. My term ends on March 8," Samy Vellu said after handing over the president's merit awards to excellent SPM and STPM Indian students at the Putra World Trade Centre here yesterday.

Samy Vellu, 72, has declared that he would quit active politics in 2012 and this bid would be his last as party president, a post which he has held since 1981, after serving two years before as acting president.

The MIC supremo lost the Sungai Siput parliamentary seat in the March 8 general election, and speculation has been rife that the veteran politician would contest the post for the last time next year before handing over the party to the chosen successor.

To contest the president's post, a potential candidate needs to amass at least 50 nominations from the 3,600 MIC branches nationwide.

Samy Vellu, who joined the party in 1959 as an ordinary member, garnered 528 nominations to contest the post in the last presidential election, which he won uncontested.

He moved up the ranks in the party from being an ordinary member to taking over the highest position in the MIC after 22 years.

In 1971, he became the Youth chief, was elected vice-president in 1975 and became deputy president in 1977 after defeating Datuk S. Subramaniam who was then party secretary-general.

He became a member of parliament in 1978 and following the death of Tan Sri V. Manickavasagam in 1979, he was made acting party president.

He was elected president on March 22, 1981, a position he had held since despite a challenge by Subramaniam for the post in 1990. -- Bernama