WAY back in the 1990s and until not too long ago, the year 2020 was much anticipated in Malaysia. It promised to be a glamorous one, a “coming out” event of sorts to mark Malaysia achieving her Vision 2020 aspirations. That was to be the year when she would be joining the exclusive club of developed nations.

Malaysia is way far short of achieving her Vision 2020 goals, set back in 1990, a generation earlier. All those grandiose visions were but, as we Malays would put it, angan angan Mat Jenin (the wild fantasies of Mat Jenin – the lovable clown in Malay folklore).

The man who articulated that grand plan was one Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He resigned as prime minister in 2003 after being at the helm for nearly 23 years. Then in May 2018 following an electoral upset, he was back as prime pinister, his second time around after a hiatus of over a decade and a half, and now at 93 years old.

Not for long however, for 22 months later he resigned. Instead of an outpouring of grief and pleading for his return as when he quit in 2003, this time he was ignored. Later he was out-manoeuvred when he tried a comeback, an over-cocky flying squirrel that overestimated the strength of the branch he was about to land on, or his skill, and thus crashed to the ground. His grovelling today to get back his old position and power is not a pretty sight, in fact downright pathetic.

Dr Mahathir first put forth his vision for the future of Malaysia in an address to the Malaysian Business Council in 1989. This was followed by a series of essays under the title The Way Forward. The country then was still the darling of the West, recognised as an emerging economic power, another potential Asian Tiger though not quite yet on par with Taiwan, Singapore or South Korea. A British publisher later put those essays in a slim volume with the same title.

Dr Mahathir’s vision caught on and became the basis of his Sixth Malaysia Plan introduced in 1991. It was to be the nation’s blueprint for development for the next 30 years, the span of a generation, to end on–auspiciously–2020. As “The Way Forward” did not quite have a zing to it, the plan was later dubbed “Vision 2020.”

Dr Mahathir eschewed the traditional criteria of a developed society, dismissing them as the parochial inventions of the West. He fancied that he could better such traditional markers as the per capita income, level of industrialisation, or the human development index. Instead, he envisioned “a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and shared destiny”. His other goals were equally nebulous, if not corny, as with a society that would be “robust”, “economically just”, and “psychologically liberated”.

His paean to measurable goals (and modern economics) was the doubling of the Malaysian GDP every decade, or an eight-fold increase from its 1990 base. That would assume a consistent 7% annual growth. Quite a challenge, although South Korea, and later China, plus a few other nations did it.

Dr Mahathir’s Vision 2020 fantasy was rudely interrupted by the 1997 Asian contagion. He blamed the West for its rapacious capitalism that gave rise to such celebrated “greedy” currency speculators as George Soros. Then as if not challenged enough by that economic crisis, Mahathir created a much unneeded and nearly crippling accompanying political crisis by picking a fight with his hitherto deputy and presumed heir-apparent, Anwar Ibrahim.

Having steered Malaysia through that treacherous stretch of political and economic turmoil, he retired in 2003 and handed power to his handpicked successor, Abdullah Badawi. Ever the poor judge of talent, Mahathir’s dud and soporific Abdullah nearly destroyed Malaysia, not wilfully but through indifferent neglect. Dr Mahathir then engineered to have Najib Razak take over. Sleepyhead Abdullah was not awake enough to know what had happened to him.

If Dr Mahathir had erred with Abdullah, then Najib was a disaster several quanta beyond. The current 1MDB debacle is one of many Najib’s ugly legacies. He is now awaiting jailtime for corruption, pending appeal.

Bless Dr Mahathir, for even though the man was 93 years old and had gone through a very serious “redo” heart bypass surgery in 2007 followed by a long recuperation, he, together with a now-invigorated opposition coalition crafted by his erstwhile nemesis Anwar, dislodged Najib’s Barisan coalition in the 2018 election.

Dr Mahathir now has a convenient excuse for his failed Vision 2020. During its first decade he could convince himself and Malaysians if not the world that it was the West that did in Malaysia. In the second decade into Vision 2020, he blamed the incompetent Abdullah, and the third, Najib with his insatiable greed. Yes, that crooked Najib nearly wrecked Malaysia with his 1MDB heist.

Dr Mahathir may have convinced himself as well as others in blaming currency speculators as well as Abdullah and Najib for his failure to lead Malaysia into that elusive and exclusive “developed nation” status, but he does not convince me.

Vision 2020 failed because of a much more simple and fundamental reason – the inadequacies of the nation’s education system. – September 21, 2020.

* This introduction is the first of two parts.

* M. Bakri Musa reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.