Noting Mahathir’s declaration that he would not lead, he says the former PM can become “the eminence grise behind a move to unseat Najib and then undo the unjust structures that have imprisoned us all.”

As for the expected attacks against Mahathir coming from what he calls the FONs (Friends of Najib), he hopes they will be carried out “with extreme vehemence” because “that will alienate the Malays more.”

“You see,” he adds, “what they fail to realise is Dr Mahathir owns the reservoir of Malay support. If you ask 10 people whether they support Najib or Mahathir, 11 people will say they support Mahathir.”

He urges the Umno Supreme Council to suspend Najib from serving as party president if it is found that he is the cause of all this trouble.

Ariff expects the FONs to be dismissive of Mahathir’s announcement of his resignation.

“They will come out and denounce the old man,” he says. “There will be copious vitriolic. Chief Nazri Aziz will play a dominant role. The reason why Najib keeps him is that he’s a useful attack dog. I am using the term ‘dog’ as he used the term to describe Muhyidin Yassin.”

Referring to Salleh Said Keruak’s statement that Mahathir made the right decision, Ariff says, “He meant Mahathir was not significant.”

But he notes that Umno information chief Annuar Musa sees it differently. “He acknowledged Mahathir’s significance when he accused the former prime minister of being willing to kill Umno because of Najib.”

He accuses the FONs of having overestimated their own importance. “That’s expected of people who share the same narcissistic traits like the Commandeer-in-Chief (sic). That’s the man who can never answer the 1MDB issue, the RM42 million SRC money that mysteriously got into his personal account and the RM2.6 million donation issue. It was donated to Umno. Najib cannot unilaterally decide to return it. Najib has denied Umno some RM2 billion.”