In the policy exchange conference two months ago in London, I remember Hussain Haqqani from Hudson Institute looking at Mr Moudud Ahmed and saying that he might have won the argument showing technicalities of constitution but he should learn from the example of Pakistan where the fight over technicalities over constitution by Bhutto and Sharif led to General Musharraf's rule. None of the constitutional technicalities that they used held any water later on. Although the fierce enemies at one time have now joined forces against Musharraf, it is too late for them. The reality in Bangladesh's democracy is something similar. We call it democracy because we have good elections. But what follows the election is shameless plundering of wealth. As if democracy was defined by elections only winning which gave the leaders a free license to steal.

As if the stealing was not enough. After looting endlessly and crippling all our service sectors, they wanted to make sure that they are in power for a long time to come. So why not take down the institutions one by one. Administration, lower judiciary, caretaker government, election commission -- all went one by one. Finally the last bastion of hope -- the Supreme Court was gone too.

We only had a free press to show for -- but did we really? The black money holders after bankrupting the country decided to have either the print media or the electronic media to cloud the news for their business interests. We did not know right from wrong because each news had two versions. Not only you had to read the news, you had to interpret who was the owner of the news source. Yes, we had free press on paper but could our reporters from outside Dhaka report everything they saw? Bangladesh became the most dangerous place for journalists in the world. One after another journalists were killed and the killers escaped punishment. Ask any journalist from the outside Dhaka and they will tell you how they would have to tow the line of the powerful. During Awami League it was Feni's Tipu Sultan beaten by AL MP Hajari, during BNP rule it was Faridpur's Mithu by BNP MP Shahid. Same cheap wine -- only in different bottle. I have met both of them. They did not look much different to me. The beating of one was no less than the other. And if you want to know the state of Dhaka journalists, ask Daily Star editor how many cases he has against him by the political parties. On the last count it was 20. Such is the state of free press in our country.

As if these violations of rights by these parties were not enough, the parties started playing with fire by engaging the Islamic extremists as their trump card. How did they get away with such murders?

Because conveniently the leaders made sure that the parties had no democracy inside. Only Netris wish was the party workers' command -- translating into command for rest of the country. Hence the results are the rise of BNP's Tarique Rahman and events like AL's deal with the Islamists without the knowledge of the most. The two leaders of the two parties were randomly deciding the future of 140 million people with absolutely no one to challenge them.

Admittedly, I initially rooted for any one but BNP in the coming election simply for accountability's sake. However, after the "legal fatwa" deal with the Islamists, and shameless cajoling of Ershad, it became clear to me the lesson AL took from the last 5 years was not that it will have to clean up the system that was destroyed by BNP. More alarmingly Shaikh Hasina decided that the only way to beat BNP was to be becoming more BNP-like. So predictably the next few years would have been followed by the same thing that happened past 5 years only this time by different party making a mockery of us -- the voting public. For a while, I believed strongly that you need to slowly reform the parties from inside because there are a lot of genuine dedicate mid level leaders in the parties who worked for the people. But when the rot is in the head, it is foolish to expect any reform. Something very drastic was in order. Predictably then came 1/11 .

Financial Times of London has reported that the military has put in a 5 point program to the caretaker government which include electoral reform, judicial and administrative depoliticization, fixing power sector, good governance and anti corruption drive. If the interim government moves on with these five point program with full public and army backing, the parties will realise that the days of publics choosing between the devils are over. It will be absolutely critical that this government now clearly states that they will be in power for 12 months and will push through some key reforms that we know these political parties will never implement. Our broken institutions need to strengthened because of the battering and abuse it took last 15 years and no so called democratic parties, who were chiefly responsible for this state of things, will be able to provide that leadership now. At the same time, it is also high time to pay a price to the corruption of last 15 years.

If the AL cries foul today, they won't find many friends in the secular circle because they decided to ditch them for the Islamists for convenience right before the election. If the BNP cries foul, they won't find many friends among the common mass either because they tried to ram in a farce election to be in power after a nightmarish 5 years.

So what does that leave us with? The choice is clear -- go through the motion of AL-BNP and their rotten leaders every five years and see them make a farce of democracy ie winner takes all (country) -- or try something new for a change and force the political parties to reform themselves. Yes, there is a risk -- risk of an ambitious general making a hasty move. But consider if this is a risk worth taking. At the end of the day, ask yourself how long do you want to keep our country hostage by Sheikh Hasina, Khaleda Zia and H M Ershad who took our country for a ride for the last 25 years? There has to be a price proportional to the crimes they have committed. In my last article in the Daily Star three weeks ago in a letter addressed to Mr Jalil, the AL secretary, I wrote the following,

http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/2006/12/25/open-letter-to-abdul-jalil, which now sounds prophetic:

"If you want to have any shred of political credibility for the future, you will want to scrap this deal. Otherwise, you will not find the friends with you when you need them and believe me you will need friends a lot sooner than you think. Deal or no deal, do know this, that from now on we will make it very, very expensive for you to take our support for granted."

Awami League of course went on to defend the deal leaving their core supporters bewildered. So there you have it… I just put a price to my support for these "democratic" parties. They have to prove that they and their definition of democracy are better than a military backed interim government (if that is what we have now) before they get my support again.

Asif Saleh is the executive director of human rights organization Drishtipat.