Caught in the thick of it, with endless conflicting rumours and information flying in all directions, it is hardly surprising most Malaysians feel utterly baffled and confused. So near to the action it is hard to see the wood from the trees.

Furthermore, after two years of increasingly tedious daily coverage it has become easy for many to forget the significance of the matter on which most UMNO minds are concentrated – certainly the minds of those most engaged in the ongoing, if floundering coup attempt by a ragbag of desperados that began last weekend and will continue until a new government is announced and numbers are confirmed.

That matter is the slew of charges that many of UMNO’s warlords face, with looming penalties involving years in jail. Worse is brewing for one Najib Razak as more and more details have started to be teased out by the investigators back on the case of the Altantuya murder. Questions have arisen which he needs to answer and it may not be easy.

There is only one way out for these fellows and they know it. A coup to overturn an election that removed their abusive hands from the levers of power after 60 years. They are behind what is happening now.

Fugitive PKR MPs standing behind Azmin Ali have made fools of themselves by claiming they have chosen limbo in the name of defending the honour of the very politician they forced to resign thanks to their actions on Sunday. They are now faced with the awful reality that they have become part of a line-up being stitched together by the likes of Najib, Hishammuddin and Zahid to overturn the election and snatch power to evade justice.

Does it make Sarawak Dayak MPs comfortable with their constituents to be supporting a Malay supremacist PAS/UMNO agenda? Will ill-tempered spats against Chinese rivals and DAP whitewash those actions in the eyes of voters who elected them all in the name of progress, reform and above all anti-corruption?

Faced with the uncertainty and the dissolving of government (this state of apparent chaos has so far been the greatest hope and achievement of the plotters still hoping desperately to push their momentum) many MPs are indeed as confused and lost as everyone else.

Meanwhile, each of the smaller parties are wondering how they might need to jump if UMNO/PAS were to succeed in their bold move. Meetings are taking place, the bartering is on – even though the numbers remain with the prime minister if he can hold his own party Bersatu in place.

No one should imagine that money would not be part of the equation if UMNO /PAS find any opening to deploy it. They have preached ‘Malay Unity’ as their constant trump card to sow the discord they need to break up the winning coalition that has faced them with so much legal retribution, however what they are really practised at is Money Politics.

Money Politics for decades has ensured UMNO/PAS coffers are exceedingly deep for purposes such as these – 1MDB was the tip of an iceberg and if anyone needs to convince themselves of Najib’s continuing access to kingly cash they should observe the enormous fat cat legal teams who have run his raft of legal cases non-stop over the past two years.

Just last week PAS (the self-proclaimed ‘religious’ party) smugly referred to the Perak defection scandal as a fine example of how YBs voted in to represent one party could be ‘frogged’ into UMNO to seize power back from what the voters had decided. This band of immoralists have had two years to scour for frogs in Harapan and this is the moment of opportunity like none other.

So, for those who cry “what is going on”? the answer, as so often, is in plain sight. This is about UMNO warlords making their desperate bid to undo GE14 together with their lengthily courted PAS allies, the disgruntled Azmin and any of the remaining confused beings he has brought with him from PKR.

The same team will be scouring Warisan and GPS ready to sprinkle their gold dust anywhere they can buy MPs. In Sabah that would take the heat off the kickback Aman brothers and over-turn the election outcome there as well. There is no question that these desperados are trying hard – they know full well that this is their window of opportunity to keep up the momentum before all is lost.

Maybe things have not gone fully to plan – fallen flat even.  The plotters had been promised that Dr Mahathir would play ball in return for promises of everlasting official duties. He didn’t. However, hope springs eternal, particularly amongst fugitives from the law.

Numbers are being furiously counted and claims made. Mahathir is back as prime minister, but the plotters hope to destabilise his base – MPs are even being marched to the palace so the King can count them!

It is indeed a crowing irony that the coup masters who claimed their whole effort was intended merely to shore up the prime minister are now the ones feverishly trying to cobble together a rival coalition made up of the corrupted and the confused to overthrow him.

The King will assuredly step back from entering into such dangerous games that disrupt due process and civil harmony. The people will not be forgiving of a coup that overturns an election result – KL in 2020 is not Perak in the era of BN. And the place to decide the numbers will be parliament.

Meanwhile, the prime minister will pull together a government in the knowledge that those accused of seeking to topple him were those who were actually supporting him, whereas his once most professed ‘faithful allies’ had been the plotters all along