Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has been asked whether, in introducing his new 'Transformasi Nasional 2050', he has forgotten the government's Vision 2020 due in four years.

"It is most shocking that Najib could so cavalierly and unceremoniously repudiate Vision 2020, when only in the last budget presentation last year, he reiterated his commitment to achieve Vision 2020 and the goal of a developed nation status.

"What has happened to the 11th Malaysia Plan which Najib had announced in Parliament in March last year as 'the final lap' in the country’s march to achieving developed nation status in 2020?

"Has he abandoned both Vision 2020 and its final lap?" asked DAP Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang in a statement.

Lim said the repudiation of Vision 2020, said to be hinted at when the prime minister said, "Let the old legacy pass," was an admission of failure to take the country to its decade long quest to be a developed nation by the year 2020.

He said this failure and the "absence of credibility" of the deliverer of the budget in light of the 1MDB scandal, was the primary reason for the opposition walkout in Parliament yesterday.

"I have personally seen some 42 budget presentations in Parliament since my first election as MP, and this is the first time that a budget has attracted such derision because of its double absence of credibility – over the budget itself and the presenter of the budget.

"This is why for the first time in Malaysia’s parliamentary history since Merdeka in 1957, there is a mass protest walkout of opposition MPs in Parliament during the presentation of the budget.

"Why had such protest walkouts of MPs not happened in past budget presentations by past finance ministers?

"Najib’s 2017 Budget makes double history - the first budget since Malaysia had acquired the infamy of being regarded world-wide as a 'global kleptocracy' as well as going down in history as one where Najib admits failure and repudiates Vision 2020 by announcing his own Vision 2050," said Lim.

Vision 2050?

The veteran opposition MP said Najib however "did not have the courage to openly and directly repudiate Vision 2020 but had to resort to the sleight-of-hand of not mentioning Vision 2020 at all when announcing his new Vision 2050".

But it was obvious, said Lim, that the likely intention was to replace Mahathir's Vision 2020 with the prime minister's new National Transformation 2050 or TN 50.

Ever since Mahathir quit the ruling party this year and joined forces with the opposition to call for Najib's resignation, the ruling party has been dismantling the long-running premier's legacy.

Lim said if the government has abandoned the 2020 target, then it owes the people a full explanation why.

"Malaysians have a right to know why the 30-year Vision 2020 had failed before they embrace and embark on Najib’s 34-year Vision 2050," he said.