As posted by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at Che Det on February 25, 2016
1. My very good friend, colleague, former Deputy President of UMNO and Deputy Prime Minister, Tun Musa Hitam blames me for the failure to achieve Vision 2020 (read here). It is all because I failed to groom successors at all levels.
2. My first failure was Tun Musa Hitam himself. He could not wait for me to retire. So he resigned after 5 years being with me as my deputy, in a Government his boys called the MM Government.
3. He believed the UMNO Supreme Council would throw me out and appoint him as President. The Council decided to persuade him to return as DPM and Deputy President. He came back as Deputy President.
4. At the next UMNO Election he persuaded his erstwhile rival and enemy, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah to contest for President against me. He was prepared to be Deputy President and DPM under Tengku Razaleigh and not under me.
5. These he did even though I overlooked his bad faith and later appointed him as Special Envoy to the UN with ministerial rank.
6. In the contest for presidency, (Tan Sri) Syed Hamid Albar, (Tan Sri) Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir, (Tun) Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and (Tan Sri) Rais Yatim sided with Tengku Razaleigh.
7. I and Ghafar Baba won. Then I appointed all those who were not loyal to me as ministers in my cabinet. One of them, Tun Abdullah, eventually was named my successor as Prime Minister. Far from choosing only loyalists, I chose those disloyal to me.
8. I did not train anyone so they can make a success of Vision 2020. I believed in leadership by example. I must have set a bad example because those who succeeded me all failed to make a success of Vision 2020. I am to blame of course.
9. Dear Musa, thank you very much for pin-pointing the cause of the failure of Vision 2020. You must have known this in 1986, long before the Vision. It must have been your foresight which caused you to resign from the Government I headed. So no one can blame you. Your service to me and the nation will go down in history.
