He credited Najib for BN's victory in yesterday's Hulu Selangor parliamentary by-election, saying the prime minister had managed to change BN's image for the better.
In view of this, Mahathir said the ruling coalition had the ability to achieve a bigger victory in the 13th general election.
"In the last general election, BN performed poorly not because of BN per se but because the people didn't like certain individuals," he was quoted as saying by Bernama.
Mahathir said BN, however, should conduct a post-mortem on why it lost the Chinese votes in the by-election.
Pak Lah credits Najib's people-first initiatives
The former premier had played an instrumental role in ousting his successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in order for Najib to take over.
Mahathir had been highly critical of Abdullah, and blamed his “poor” leadership for BN's electoral disaster in 2008.
The former premier also hit the campaign trail in Hulu Selangor, where he had harped on several of his favourite issues such as his former deputy Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy charge.
Meanwhile, Abdullah said the Hulu Selangor victory was a result of Najib's people-first initiatives.
He said that through the programmes, the people were able to convince themselves that there would be more people-friendly initiatives from Najib in the years to come.
"We hope that the initiatives taken by Najib will continue and we will continue to support him," he told reporters in Putrajaya.
In the by-election, BN's P Kamalanathan polled 24,997 votes to defeat Zaid Ibrahim of PKR, who polled 23,272 votes, with a majority of 1,725 votes.
Abdullah said the victory would boost the spirit of party leaders, which he said augured well for the BN's quest to recapture Selangor, one of the five states it lost in the March 2008 general election.
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