These gheraos, practiced by all political parties when out of power, are seen by the people basically as political actions to improve their election positions. Of course, they always use the serious issues like deteriorating law and order situation, electricity outage, high commodity prices, widespread corruptions by the ruling party, etc to capture the support of the common people with a view to intensifying their movement to oust the ruling party from power.

But it is quite clear that the common people do not support actions that disrupt the means of their livelihood and cannot bring electricity or immediate fall in the prices. These are difficult issues and those political parties which were in the governments during the last decade were all, by and large, responsible for these problems. The common people have seen performances of all these parties and have no illusion about what they will do when they will come to power.

It has, however, been known that political parties in opposition continue with their political programs regardless of what common people feel about it. The ruling party did the same thing when they were out of power. The ruling party should have realized that they failed to deliver what they promised during the last election and hence the present political mess. As the ruling party they should have shown more political tolerance in handling the gherao of the PM's office on April 19, 2006.

Instead of having a nearly three mile "no-sit-in" zone to protect the PM's office, which is obviously the property of the nation, the opposition processions should have been allowed, escorted by the less volatile police force (generally such processions remain peaceful but police provocations make them disruptive), to come probably up to the fountain in Bijoy Sharani where they could find a bigger sit-in area. The government could have announced in advance, through media, a committee (if the PM wanted to avoid the crowd) headed by a senior minister and a party boss, say the Secretary General, which could meet the representatives of the opposition processions and take their written demands for government's consideration.

If the situation was managed like this in a democratic way, then one could say with some amount of certainty that the opposition would not have behaved the way it did. Apparently, it did so under the provocation of the terribly intolerant police force which routinely beat up all the former Home Ministers whenever they find them in the processions (L Z Babar may take note of this). Along with them they beat others mercilessly. They do not spare even the journalists and shamelessly beat up even a senior journalist like Zahurul Huq. They also misbehaved with the women activists (these activists also often go beyond their limits: ref. The Daily Star photo dt. April 20; a lady throwing stones at the police force; another was seen apparently trying to snatch the rifle of a police man, maybe after being beaten up).

However, had the ruling party shown tolerance and respect to the opposition's program regardless of its character and if the opposition still behaved the same way, the ruling party would have scored a big plus for the next election. But unfortunately things went beyond control and it was proven to the world that Bangladesh political parties talk of democracy, but hardly observe the democratic rules when it comes to their show of political strengths.

They go by their standard formula whenever they are out of power and observe hartals, gheraos that bring terrible distress to the civil society. Though peoples' memory is short, it is not that short; all political parties must remember that the election is only a few months away. If all these deeds and counter-deeds are for coming to power or for retaining power as applicable, then they must show respect to what people want; the people want peace and not street fights in the name of democracy.

The people want dialogue; democracy demands dialogue between political parties to solve problems and not street agitations (street agitation may be a democratic process but that should be only the last resort) that destroy economy and bring immense suffering to the people. The dialogue between opposition political parties and the ruling alliance is a must for finding an acceptable solution so that a free and fair election could be held early next year.

But unfortunately there is no progress in that area. Only exchange letters and harsh words. The combined opposition does not want to sit with the Jamat. The reasons are well known, but the ruling party reportedly appears hell bent to include Jamat as it says Jamat is a part of the ruling alliance. People wonder why such objections now when the opposition sat with Jamat earlier and also sometime sit with them in the present parliament. The opposition never said it would not go to the parliament as Jamat is there. Unless Jamat is banned politically for their alleged crimes during Liberation War, their representatives elected by the people will sit in the parliament and may appear in the political discussions as a part of the alliance.

However, for the sake of good politics and for the welfare of the country, the ruling party could avoid nomination of Jamat. Maybe they would do so as the final letter has not been sent out yet by the ruling alliance. What the ruling party could do is to do internal consultation with Jamat as and when necessary on all the issues and present them to the opposition in the Reform Committee. This could be a way out. As Jamat issue is a terribly sensitive one, the ruling party should give due consideration to it while sending the names for the Reform Committee.

The opposition argument as stated by a senior member Tofael Ahmad appears reasonable when he says Reform Committee is a political committee and not a parliament committee. Indeed, the ruling party allowed the opposition to include non-MP member in the Reform Committee. So it may not be necessary at all to include Jamat in the committee though the said issue was mooted in the parliament.

The most important thing is that the dialogue must take place, the presence of Jamat should be ignored if nominated for finding an acceptable solution to the reform of the caretaker government and Election Commission. The people will not rest unless these are sorted out by the political parties. The political parties must not think that "the nation is made up of two political parties, where people are only their playthings" (ref: The Daily Star editorial).

The nation demands that the next election is held in a free and fair manner and that the political parties do not field corrupt candidates. The parliament must have clean people who will be willing to serve the people and not plunder the wealth of the country. The people fought and liberated the country and they have the right to say how the country should be run; this is what democracy is all about. Any failure to do so may bring political disaster of unknown dimensions.

Muslehuddin Ahmad is a former Secretary and Ambassador and founder VC of North South University. He is also Chairman of Civic Watch & Citizens Forum Against Corruption.