MIC President Dr S Subramaniam told this to reporters after attending the 70th anniversary celebrations of the Perak MIC in Sungai Siput yesterday.
“It is more important to choose the right candidate than a local one, because we should look at who is a more suitable and qualified candidate.
“We can only choose local candidates if we were contesting in all constituencies. But in the last elections, we only contested five seats in Perak,” Subramaniam was quoted as saying by The Star.
In the 13th General Election, held on May 5, 2013, MIC contested in two Parliamentary seats in Perak – Tapah and Sungai Siput – and three state seats – Buntong, Jelapang, and Hutan Melintang. MIC won only one of the five seats contested, Tapah.
He added that though it was impractical to fields candidates based on where he or she was from, the party was willing to choose one if the requirements are met.
“That has been MIC’s policy all this while, but the final decision was still up to the BN leadership,” he said, according to the daily.
The Sungai Siput parliamentary seat has been an MIC stronghold since Merdeka with former party president V T Sambanthan, who was born there, winning the seat in 1959, and keeping the seat until 1974.
He was succeeded by another MIC president, S Samy Vellu, who was not a local, but went on to win the seat in every election until 2008, when he lost to Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s (PSM) Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj.
Meanwhile, Jeyakumar, who retained the seat in 2013, faces the possibility of being challenged by fellow Opposition party candidates in the next general election (GE14), according to PSM Central Committee Member S Arutchelvan.
The PSM veteran told Star Online yesterday that there were indications DAP or PKR were interested in contesting in Sungai Siput in GE14.
“The big parties think they can bully the smaller ones. We do all the work but when it comes to elections, they want to stand.
“It looks like the Opposition is not interested in one-on-one fights,” he told the news portal.
In the 2013 General Election, PSM was engaged in three-cornered fights with PKR and BN in the Semenyih state seat, and with PAS and Barisan in the Kota Damansara state seat.
BN won both seats.
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