PARLIAMENT Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Vision 2020 had an unlikely defender today, Nurul Izzah Anwar (PKR-Lembah Pantai).

The daughter of Mahathir’s former prodigy-turned-foe Anwar Ibrahim, took a swipe at Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for rubbishing the vision.

“I don’t understand how Pekan (Najib) could just negate a vision that has been built for so long,” Nurul Izzah told the House.

Najib had in Budget 2017 announced the new National Transformation 2050 or TN50, which critics say repudiated Vision 2020.

Vision 2020 was Mahathir’s personal quest to see Malaysia become a developed nation.

Nurul Izzah said while the opposition criticised past autocratic regimes, they never hated the personal aspects.

As such she said, the opposition had never attacked Vision 2020.

“We may not agree with a lot of things Mahathir did, there was a lot of cruelty, but when it came to the vision which outlined our shared future (we did not attack it),” she said.

She pleaded with Najib to accept good policies for the people, and to accept any weaknesses on the government’s part.

Together she said, they could work towards implementing reforms.

She also said that she did not want the country to be burdened by another transformation programme, when existing programmes such as the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) had not achieved its objectives.

While she rejected the budget tabled by Najib, Nurul Izzah did say it had good points such as the efforts made for Uber and taxi drivers.