The new party to be set up by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad would offer UMNO and Barisan Nasional competition to become more successful, said Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak.

The Communications and Multimedia Minister, who welcomed Tun Dr Mahathir's move, said countries like Japan and Germany excelled because they had to struggle to survive whereas empires such as Britain faded away due to rot and complacency.

"Sometimes competition is good when it makes you aware that unless you buck up and work harder you face the risk of defeat.

"So maybe (Tun Dr) Mahathir is doing UMNO and Barisan Nasional a favour by offering us some competition because competition is always good to see success," he said in his latest blog entry on sskeruak.blogspot.com.

The newly-appointed UMNO treasurer, however, said that Dr Mahathir's decision had proven the latter's stand clearly that he was not trying to save UMNO but destroying it instead.

"(Tun) Dr Mahathir has finally admitted that the only way to change the government is in a general election. Of course, (Tun Dr) Mahathir will not admit that he is trying to change the government.

"He claims he is just trying to remove prime minister (Datuk Seri) Najib Tun Razak to save UMNO, Barisan Nasional and Malaysia.

"It is strange that someone would want to save the party that he claims he still loves by trying to destroy it. It is like saying that you want to save humanity by destroying the world," he added.