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After Vella Murugan’s third application for a government-subsidized mortgage was turned down in September, he decided he would back the opposition in Malaysia’s March 8 election.
He blames the rejection on his Indian ancestry. “I see my Malay neighbors with the same salary as me getting loans all the time,” said Vella, 38, a laborer from a Kuala Lumpur suburb who earns about 800 ringgit ($245) a month, just above the official poverty line. Indians “have a lack of opportunities.”
Malaysia’s biggest minorities — Indians and Chinese — have become more vocal in airing such grievances, taking a toll on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s support. In November, Vella joined 10,000 other Indians to protest Malaysia’s legalized discrimination system, the largest ethnic demonstration in Kuala Lumpur since 1969.
“We love being part of Malaysia, but the government has to know how we feel,” Vella said.
Come election day, “some non-Malays might feel that they need to vote for the opposition because of what they have seen and felt,” said Mohamed Mustafa Ishak, international studies dean at Universiti Utara Malaysia.
Indians and Chinese together are a third of Malaysia’s population of 27 million. If enough vote against the ruling coalition, it would lose the two-thirds parliamentary majority it has had for more than 30 years — a free hand that consolidated Malay power.
Emboldened Opposition
Even if Abdullah’s super-majority remains, a close call may embolden the opposition. The coalition won 64 percent of the vote and 90 percent of the parliament’s seats in 2004, and it is unlikely to lose control completely.
Approval for Abdullah, 68, among Indians fell to 38 percent in December, from 79 percent in October, according to a survey published by the Merdeka Center, an independent Malaysian research group.
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