KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 25): Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has declared his former ally, Tun Musa Hitam, as his “first failure” after the former deputy prime minister said recently the country’s longest-serving prime minister could be the reason Vision 2020 would not be achieved.

“My first failure was Tun Musa Hitam himself. He could not wait for me to retire. So he resigned after five years being with me as my deputy, in a government his boys called the MM government.

“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,” Dr Mahathir said in his popular Chedet.cc site.

Musa at a talk last Saturday had said Dr Mahathir was both the creator and destroyer of Vision 2020.

Musa, the deputy prime minister from 1981 to 1986, said Dr Mahathir had undone the dream when he chose to remove potential leaders and train followers instead.

“Those followers ended up taking over the leadership of the country after he left office,” he added.

“It is ironic that Dr Mahathir’s vision is now certain to fail because of Dr Mahathir himself.

“Brilliant as he was, he forgot that in order to succeed, he needed to train leaders at all levels, but most importantly, political leaders.

“His personal leadership record shows that he did away with all potential leaders and retained and trained followers. It is mostly these trained followers who had taken over the leadership of the country,” Musa was quoted as saying in news reports.

Dr Mahathir said having returned as deputy president, Musa then persuaded his former rival and enemy, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, to contest the party presidency against him at the following Umno election.

"He was prepared to be deputy president and DPM under Tengku Razaleigh and not under me. These he did even though I overlooked his bad faith and later appointed him as special envoy to the UN with ministerial rank," Dr Mahathir wrote in his blog.

Recounting the party election of 1987, Dr Mahathir said 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.

However, it was Dr Mahathir and his running mate Tun Ghafar Baba who 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."

Dr Mahathir wrote that he did not train anyone so they could 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.

"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."