PENANG, Malaysia -- A second-echelon leadership has emerged within Malaysia's prominent opposition party, Keadilan, to pursue its fight for justice after eight top party leaders were detained by police.

Composed of young educated people, the second-tier leaders of the National Justice Party, or Keadilan, are currently on a nationwide roadshow, mainly in the Malay heartland, the power base of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the leading component of the ruling National Front (NF) coalition.

Speaking before large crowds, they highlight the plight of the eight leaders, who were detained last month under Malaysia's Internal Security Act (ISA). The speakers accuse Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of deviating from the original aim of the 40-year-old law of detaining only communists.

The prime minister, they say, had instead used the Draconian act to jail his political opponents in Keadilan for 60 days without trial, where they would be subjected to intense mental torture and other forms of inhumane treatment to break their spirit so as to induce "confessions" to be aired later on television.

The detainees, they insist, were merely exercising their democratic right and do not constitute a security threat at all, unlike the communists in the 1960s and 1970s.

But local media quoted the authorities' charge that the detainees were planning to start street demonstrations in a bid to topple the government under the pretext of handing a memo on April 14 to the National Human Rights Commission, protesting alleged human rights abuses.

The date was deliberately chosen because it was the first anniversary of the conviction of sacked Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim to six years imprisonment for corruption, the media said.

It noted that the detained politicians -- Ezam Mohd Noor, Tien Chua, Gobalakrishnan, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, Saari Sungib, Harun Ghani, Lokman Adam, Badrul Amin -- were caught with incriminating evidence that they planned the demos along the lines of the Reformasi movement in Indonesia that toppled former President Suharto in 1998.

A Keadilan division chief, Malik Kassim of Tanjong, said that there are 28 second-echelon party leaders in the mass-based party, whose members include former UMNO people who bolted the party after Anwar was sacked as deputy premier, nongovernmental groups (NGOs), Islamic groups opposed to the NF, and former members of the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party (DAP).

In an interview last week in the northern Malaysian state of Penang, Malik a former UMNO member, noted that the new leaders, who have so far played supporting leadership roles, capable of taking over the role of those arrested.

Though the backup Keadilan leaders appear to be doing fairly well at this stage, political observer nevertheless concede that the group still has a long way to go before it becomes as skillful as their detained colleagues.

Many are still politically raw and have not emerged fully out of their supporting roles. Though they have indicated their willingness to be arrested under the ISA (their road shows are being conducted without police permits), their determination to withstand mental torture has yet to be tested, the observers say.

Other observers note that the detention of the eight leaders is a calculated government attempt to topple the party. They hold the view that without the eight to keep alive the spirit of Reformasi and street action, Keadilan would soon collapse.

Rozaid Rahman, editor of the Malaysian Web site AgendaMalaysia, in a recent interview in Kuala Lumpur, said the NF government views Keadilan, with its potential to reach out to a multiracial audience, as a long-term threat to its power based on racial politics.

Though Keadilan has conceded that the arrest of its top leaders like Ezam, Tien Chua and Gobala have caused some dismay among its rank and file, some party leaders believe that all is not lost. The party deputy chairman for Penang, lawyer Cheah Kah Peng, said in a recent interview that one needs to look at the silver lining in the ISA detentions.

"The party cannot rely on the efforts of the front-liners forever. Sooner or later the second-echelon leaders would have to take over, as no one is indispensable. The arrests have sped up this process of leadership renewal and we should view it in this perspective."

Another Keadilan leader in Penang, who appears to have faith in the backup leaders, is state assemblyman for Penanti, Abdul Rahman Kadir. In a recent interview in Permatang Pauh, Anwar's former parliamentary constituency which is currently held by his wife, Dr. Wan Azizah for Keadilan, Abdul Rahman said that one should take into account the cumulative efforts of the second-echelon leaders to spread the message of reform to the people over the next few years until the next general election in 2004.

"If the move to nurture anti-NF sentiment over injustices perpetrated on the people is sustained over the next three years, this will lead to a situation where the masses will come out to reject Mahathir totally in the next polls, " said Abdul Rahman.