KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25 ― Retired prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad acknowledged today a former deputy’s criticism faulting him for the potential derailment of Vision 2020 which he had mooted in his final years in office.

In a sarcasm-laden blogpost, the 90-year-old accepted that he should bear the blame for failing to “train” subsequent prime ministers on how to navigate the country towards developed nation status within the time frame he had set back in 1991.

“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,” he wrote.

He attributed his failure to appointing former challengers from Umno to key positions in his administration, which lasted 22 years from 1981 to 2003, starting with his “very good friend, colleague” Tun Musa Hitam.

“My first failure was Tun Musa Hitam himself. He could not wait for me to retire,” Dr Mahathir said.

He noted that Musa resigned just five years after serving as deputy prime minister and “persuaded” other Umno rivals to challenge him for the party presidency ― which by custom sets the legitimacy for the post of prime minister ― he was later appointed special envoy to the United Nations with ministerial rank.

“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 said.

He ended his response to Musa’s recent diatribe predicting doom for Vision 2020 with an expression of thanks.

“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.”