Labour in-migration is also expected to affect the political situation in Malaysia in the long run. Malaysia has a multi-ethnic population and political parties are ethnically based. These parties compete with one another for power and consequently demography becomes a political issue. Each ethnic group (Malay, Chinee and Indian) is concerned with its numerical strength vis-a-vis the others. In such a context the influx of alien labour, especially of Indonesians (who have close socio-cultural ties with the Malays), is viewed with suspicion by some non-Malay political leaders such as those in the Democratic Action Party (DAP). The accommodating attitude of the government towards immigrant labour is seen by some of them as a deliberate attempt by the UMNO (Malay) led government to swamp the country with Indonesians who, they believe, will eventually assimilate with the Malays and thus increase Malay voting strength. But set against labour recruiting processes and actual labour utilisation, the accusation made against the Malay political leaders appears misdirected. The main importers (including recruiting agents) and employers of foreign labour are the non-Malays, in particular the Chinese, who are largely in control of the construction industry, plantations, factories, large departmental stores, retail shops, etc., where the majority of alien workers are employed. Even in government land development schemes, the contractors and sub-contractors are mainly Chinese and it is they who first started to use illegal foreign workers in the early 1970s.
The presence of other ethnic immigrant groups, such as the Filipinos (except for those in Sabah), the Bangladeshis, Indians and Myanmarese, is not politicised. This is primarily because their numbers are relatively small and because of the general belief that they are transient workers who will eventually return to their own countries.