Official reports by the government placed the number of deaths due to the riots at 196, although international diplomatic sources and observers at the time suggested a toll of close to 600, while others named much higher figures, with most of the victims being ethnic Chinese.

[1][2] The race riots led to a declaration of a state of national emergency by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, resulting in the suspension of parliament.

The special privileged position of Malay political power, however, is guaranteed under Article 153 of the constitution, written during Malayan independence.

[14] On the nights of 11 and 12 May, the DAP and Gerakan celebrated their success in the election, with permission being sought by Tan Chee Khoon from the police.

[10][16] Some opposition supporters were said to have driven past the residence of the Selangor chief minister and demanded that he abandon the house in favour of a Chinese person.

[18] On 12 May, members of UMNO Youth indicated to Selangor's Menteri Besar, Harun Idris, that they wanted to hold a victory parade.

Tunku Abdul Rahman would later call the retaliatory parade "inevitable, as otherwise the party members would be demoralised after the show of strength by the Opposition and the insults that had been thrown at them".

That morning, Malays began to gather at the residence of Harun Idris on Jalan Raja Muda, on the edge of Kampung Baru, although some were already there as early as Sunday evening.

[19] According to the National Operations Council's (NOC) official report, at around 6:30 pm, fistfights broke out in Setapak between a group of Malays from Gombak travelling to the rally and Chinese bystanders who taunted them, and this escalated into bottle- and stone-throwing.

[20] News of the fighting then reached the gathering crowd in Jalan Raja Muda, and shortly before 6:30 pm, many Malays broke off from the rallying point at Idris's house and headed through adjoining Chinese sections.

[23] The NOC's official report, however, suggested that Chinese secret society elements had prepared for trouble and were in action when the violence started in Kampung Baru.

[25] The Chinese also attempted to burn down the UMNO headquarters on Batu Road and besieged the Salak South police station.

Foreign correspondents reported seeing members of the Royal Malay Regiment firing into Chinese shophouses for no apparent reason.

[27] The army gathered at crucial road junctions and patrolled the main streets, but even though a curfew had been announced, young men in areas such as Kampung Baru and Pudu ignored the order.

[32] The violence was concentrated in urban areas, and except for minor disturbances in Malacca, Perak, Penang, and neighbouring Singapore, where the populations of Chinese people were larger, the rest of the country remained calm.

Security forces, comprising some 2,000 Royal Malay Regiment soldiers and 3,600 police officers, were deployed and took control of the situation.

On 15 May, the NOC, also known as the Majlis Gerakan Negara (MAGERAN), headed by Abdul Razak Hussein, was established following a proclamation of emergency by the sultan of Malaysia, Ismail Nasiruddin of Terengganu.

The NOC implemented security measures to restore law and order in the country, including the establishment of an unarmed vigilante corps, a territorial army, and police force battalions.

[42] The NOC released a report on 9 October 1969, which cited "racial politics" as the primary cause of the riots, but it was reluctant to assign blame to the Malays.

[45] The Malays who already felt excluded in the country's economic life, now began to feel a threat in their place in the public services.

[45]It also attributed the cause of the riots in part to both the Malayan Communist Party and secret societies: The eruption of violence on 13 May was the result of an interplay of forces...

These include a generation gap and differences in interpretation of the constitutional structure by the different races in the country...; the incitement, intemperate statements and provocative behaviours of certain racialist party members and supporters during the recent General Election; the part played by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and secret societies in inciting racial feelings and suspicion; and the anxious, and later desperate, mood of the Malays with a background of Sino-Malay distrust, and recently, just after the General Elections, as a result of racial insults and threat to their future survival in their own country'It however said that the "trouble turned out to be a communal clash between the Malays and the Chinese" rather than an instance of communist insurgency.

On 22 September 1970, when the parliament reconvened, Abdul Rahman resigned his position as prime minister, and Razak Hussein took over.

[51] In his 2007 book, May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969, Kua Kia Soong argued that, based on declassified British embassy dispatches, the riot was a coup d'état staged against Tunku Abdul Rahman by UMNO political leaders in association with the army and the police.