The Pakatan Harapan government needs to deal with bread-and-butter issues faced by the rural Malay population with "the greatest urgency", said PKR president Anwar Ibrahim.

He said failing to confront such issues will put the government at risk of dealing with the rise of "religious bigotry and racism".

The prime minister-in-waiting was speaking at a plenary session of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA) conference in Singapore on Friday.

Channel News Asia (CNA) reported Anwar as saying that the government has succumbed to pressure from the urban elite and civil society, resulting in a backlash from the majority Malay community.

"The urban elite sets a list of priorities which are a disconnect from the real problems of the poor, and at times, the elite seems to ignore these real problems. I’ve not heard them talking about poverty, inequality,” said Anwar.

“Human rights is an issue, judicial independence is an issue, and (this is something) which we should not delay in terms of implementation."

"But the crux of the problem is still the economy. Economic hardship is real, we will have to deal with this,” he was reported as saying.

Anwar reportedly said that the rural Malays are concerned that the government is formulating policies that marginalise them.

It is unclear if the Port Dickson MP was responding to the results of a survey by the independent pollster Merdeka Center on Friday.

The survey found that economic satisfaction with Harapan had fallen from 56 percent in May 2018 to 40 percent in March this year, while economic dissatisfaction jumped from 12 percent to 52 percent during the same period.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, on the other hand, has also seen his popularity rating plummet to 46 percent from 83 percent since last May, according to Merdeka Center.