Ijok by-election, 2007

The 2007 Ijok by-election was held on 28 April 2007. The seat of Ijok in the State Legislative Assembly of Selangor, Malaysia, fell vacant after the death of the incumbent, K. Sivalingam, on 4 April 2007 from a heart attack. Sivalingam was a member of the state executive council as well as the deputy chairman of the Selangor state Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), a component party of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. The by-election was won by the BN candidate K. Parthiban, with a 1,850-vote majority over the opposition candidate, Khalid Ibrahim.

State assembly seat N.08 Ijok lies in parliamentary seat P.096 Kuala Selangor. As of the 2004 General Elections, Ijok was a Malay-majority seat (50.6%), followed by Indians (28.3%), Chinese (20.9%) and others (0.2%). In the 2004 election, the late K. Sivalingam of the MIC (a component party of the BN coalition), garnered 5,213 votes, defeating Abdul Rahman Moharam of the People's Justice Party (PKR) (3,564 votes) and independent candidate Mohamed Shariff Nagoorkani (313 votes).

There was no shortage of potential candidates from the BN coalition; the English daily The Star had quoted MIC president S. Samy Vellu that 23 MIC members have expressed interest to contest the by-election. However, the two leading favourites were said to be MIC central working committee members S. Murugesan and T. Mohan. Other names bandied by the media included teacher and MIC Kuala Selangor division chief P. Thirumoorthy, Shah Alam division vice-chairman S. Muruga Vellu and Kota Raja deputy chief R. Subramaniam. However, on 16 April 2007, the BN picked a relative unknown, former teacher K. Parthiban as its by-election candidate. The selection prompted the MIC Kuala Selangor division chief P. Thirumoorthy, a relative party heavyweight on the candidate shortlist to quit the MIC, only to backtrack and declare his support for Parthiban two days later.

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