SHAH ALAM - Former prime minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad today claims that his "Wawasan 2020" (Vision 2020) dream for Malaysia turned to dust during the leadership of Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
The 98-year-old statesman said this in response to veteran DAP leader Lim Kit Siang's statement that all nine strategic challenges outlined by Dr Mahathir when Vision 2020 was launched in 1991 were utter failures.
"However, it is not my fault.There is nothing to show that vision was headed for failure until I stepped down in 2003.
"As soon as Tun Abdullah and Datuk Seri Najib took over, they set aside all the policies and directions I had charted for Malaysia," he said.
Dr. Mahathir also stated that, despite promising to see the projects through, Tun Abdullah, also known as Pak Lah, cancelled the rail, crooked bridge, and motorway projects.
Instead, Pak Lah, who served as prime minister from 2003 to 2009, prioritised initiatives involving his children and son-in-law.
"The money (wang ehsan) that was to be given to Terengganu for development purposes was instead used to build a hotel, mosque gardens, and organise yacht races.
"When the elections were called, the people eventually rejected Pak Lah, and five states ended up in opposition hands," he said, adding that Pak Lah was eventually forced to step down in 2009, only to be replaced by Najib, who served from 2009 to 2018.
He further said that Najib did not want to continue with Vision 2020 and was instead focused on benefiting himself, ending up owing the country billions of ringgit while also engaging in different criminal activities.
"There was no effort at all by both of them to achieve Vision 2020." "Vision 2020 failed because of Abdullah Badawi and Najib." Mahathir also urged Kit Siang to consider why Malaysia was unable to meet the first challenge of creating a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and shared destiny, as described in Vision 2020.
He said that this was not accomplished because many Malaysians did not speak the national language but instead promoted other languages.
"That is why we could not even achieve the first challenge, which I outlined in Vision 2020.
"Kit Siang himself did not even try to get everyone to speak in Bahasa Malaysia so that we could become a united nation," he said.