BN Indians vs PR Indians(Sharmalan Thevar)

It has been a week since elections (GE13) ended. It is probably the most controversial elections in our nation's history. When I started this blog, I told myself to avoid writing about politics. But I can't help it. I decided to start writing whatever that I feel as necessary.


Alot of Barisan Nasional (BN) supporters particularly those from Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) believe that Malaysians of Indian origin can only be represented by BN at both state and federal level. They have played the race cards for too long.

I decided to do some calculation to check on this matter. 

During the elections, we will select candidates for 2 different seats. One is for the state level, the other is for the federal level.

The state seats are known as Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) in Malaysia. A person who wins a DUN is known as Ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri (ADUN). Federal seats are referred to as Parliament seats. A person who wins the Parliament seat is referred to as Member of Parliament (MP).

Let's take a look at the statistics if what BN-MIC says is true.

Indian reps in federal and state level after GE13.

Barisan Nasional fielded a total of 33 candidates of Indian origin. Of these 33 candidates, 4 won the parliament seats and 5 won the state seats. The majority lost in the elections.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) fielded a total of 42 candidates of Indian origin. Of these 42 candidates, 10 won the parliament seats and 19 won the state seats. The majority won in the elections.

79% of Indian ADUNs are from Pakatan Rakyat. Only 21% of Indian ADUNs are from Barisan Nasional.
71% of Indian MPs are from Pakatan Rakyat. Only 29% of Indian MPs are from Barisan Nasional.

We need to keep in mind that MIC is an all Indian party. Yet, they did not win as many seats as the Indians of PR who are mainly from the multiracial parties of Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).

Take a look below for the list of candidates, their constituencies and total votes. The winners have been highlighted. You can also compare the difference of votes gained. Click to download it.

Indian candidate performance for parliament.

The picture above is for the parliament seats. 

Both BN and PR fielded 13 Indians each for parliament seats. 7 of them met head to head. PR won 5 out of the 7 meets. The remaining candidates competed with candidates from other ethnics. 


Of those 6 non-Indian meets, BN only won 2 but PR won 5. These shows that at the parliament level, the Malaysian voters preferred PR candidates more than the BN candidates.

BN gained a total of 321,528 votes and PR gained a total of 538,568 votes. On average, a BN candidate gets 24,733 votes but a PR candidate gets 41,428 votes. 

Here are the details for the state level.

Indian candidates performance for state

BN fielded 20 Indian candidates and PR fielded 29 Indian candidates. 

13 of them met head to head. PR won 10 out of the 13 meets. The remaining candidates competed with candidates from other ethnics. 


Of those 7 non-Indian meets, BN won only 2. 
Of those 16 non-Indian meets, PR won 9. 

BN gained a total of 181,065 votes and PR gained a total of 333.877 votes. On average, a BN candidate gets 9,053 votes but a PR candidate gets 11,513 votes.   

Once again, the Malaysian voters have shown that the majority of them preferred Indians candidates from PR, and not Indian candidates from BN.

This clearly shows that the major representation of the ethnic Indian community actually comes from Pakatan Rakyat and not Barisan Nasional.