Umno risks further loss unless voters change view, says Muhyiddin
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, July 11 — Umno is at risk of further losses unless party members change for the better to attract support from voters in the next general elections, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said today.
The Umno deputy president did not mince his words when he said that the reason why Barisan Nasional performed poorly during the last general elections was because of a “shift in the country’s political landscape.”
“We are facing a threat. Let me tell all of you here. We are at risk. We have to change the perception of society (towards Umno.) The process of transformation for Umno must have happened yesterday, not today. The process of (Umno’s transformation) is taking a bit too long,” Muhyiddin said when opening of the Setiawangsa Umno division meeting here.
The deputy prime minister zeroed in on the issue of urban votes and how BN had lost 10 out of the 11 seats in urban Kuala Lumpur.
“If you look at urban areas, there is a trend where there is less support for Umno. How do we work to solve an issue like this?
“You need skills to manage issues of the urban population,” said Muhyiddin to a 200-odd crowd of Umno divisional members.
Muhyiddin lamented on how members within the 53-year old party had become too comfortable with the idea of staying in power, when that there was an urgent need to realise that Umno needed to work even harder to garner more support.
“After (all these years) we have been molly-coddled, dimanjai (lavished upon), we tend to assume that things are the same, and that people are happy all the time,” said Muhyiddin.
