PETALING JAYA, July 29 — Anti-government criticism from Malaysia’s middle class should be respected, Tun Musa Hitam told Barisan Nasional (BN), as he urged the ruling pact to keep up with the urban electorate’s needs by checking corruption and power abuse.

The former deputy prime minister reminded BN that the middle class of today views things differently but said that when it came to handling this segment of the electorate, the pact had dropped the ball.

“When Malaysians are critical, it shouldn’t be dismissed as them being destructive or negative. We should respect them. The middle class today thinks very differently, and the challenge for the leadership is that it should be one step ahead but it has not even kept up,” he said.

“That is the problem. We (the government) have provided education to them, but yet, we’ve become less educated and haven’t changed our mindset,” he said in an interview with Singapore’s The Straits Times, which was published today.

The Umno veteran also added that the Malaysian middle class was “no pushover” as he told the BN-led federal government to make sure it seriously addresses problems like power abuse and corruption.

He highlighted the urgency of challenges during the party elections of BN lynchpin Umno, rubbishing concerns that those who decided to offer themselves up for a leadership post would be accused of dividing the party.

“The argument that if you contest, it will divide the party, is nonsense,” he was quoted as saying.

“That is merely a political argument that serves the incumbents or those who worry about their positions,” added Musa, who served as deputy prime minister and Umno deputy president between 1981 and 1986 during the Mahathir administration.

This year’s party polls will be crucial for the ruling party as it determines the future of the nation’s leadership, now under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

All eyes will be on Najib’s post and whether it goes unchallenged as although the prime minister’s contemporaries in Umno have pledged to leave his and his deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s posts uncontested, a surprise could yet be in store for the party leadership, particularly due to BN’s dismal showing in the May 5 general election.

During the polls, the Najib-led BN had not only failed to recapture its coveted parliamentary supermajority but also lost further ground to Pakatan Rakyat (PR) when it took 133 seats to the opposition pact’s 89.

Adding salt to the wound, the BN lynchpin appeared to blame the pact’s losses on the non-Malay voters, creating a deeper rift among the country’s races.

Najib described the election as a “Chinese tsunami” while others in his team agreed that the community had been “ungrateful” for voting against BN.

But a study of data from Election 2013 showed a major swing among the multiracial urban and middle-class electorate away from BN, independent pollster Merdeka Center said recently, disagreeing with attempts to depict the result as a Chinese-versus-Malay contest.

After over a month of fingering the Chinese for BN’s losses, Muhyiddin admitted in a speech on June 29 that members needed to take the concerns of urban voters more seriously in preparation for the next federal polls.

The Umno deputy chief pointedly said that these urban areas include those from all ethnic groups and not just the Chinese community.

“When we mention the urban people, (it’s) not just the Chinese only, but the Malays, Indians and others in the cities.

“There’s a message that they have given to us and this is something that we must take seriously... so that those who were not so confident will be more confident in the time to come,” Muhyiddin had said.