So, the news headline "Hawa Bhaban man Tinku arrested" published on January 25, that triggered a legal notice from Hawa Bhaban to this daily claiming that it was intended to cause and injure "the BNP chief's image, reputation and social status in Bangladesh and abroad" is now vindicated.

If President Ziaur Rahman was an angel of honesty, as some BNP politicians contend, then to me the last alliance rulers were the devils of dishonesty. Can anyone really tarnish the image of the imageless, bring into disrepute the disparaged, defame the infamous, and dishonour the disgraced?

Only someone who couldn't read and understand the print on the pages of the newspapers, or someone rendered senseless by their obsession with power, could remain somnolent while their country was looted to the extent that are unfolding by the hour to the outrage of everyone. Instead of being transparent in governance the rulers and their lackeys have pillaged the country so transparently, so unabashedly, that we can easily decree they are guilty as charged. Res ipsa loquitor.

There are many witty and succinct quotes concerning political corruption. The following four seems to have their deep roots in our political culture:

• "Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad." -- Henry A. Kissinger
• "The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference.”
• -- Bess Myerson
• It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible." -- David Brin
• "Power does not corrupt men. Fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power." -- George Bernard Shaw

If Henry Kissinger's 10% good ones can be identified with Bess Myerson's "accomplices" then there are hardly any politicians who can claim to be uncorrupted. This will be evident once the ACC investigates the secretaries and advisors to the PMO and various ministries about both their role and the extent of their indifference to the grand scale looting of the country by the alleged members of the families and relatives of the former PM and her courtiers. The so-called aides are the "accomplices" recognized by Bess Myerson.

Here is an example of interest. I once wrote: "It adds salt to injury when of all the people in the cabinet, a former civil servant and now a cabinet minister asserts that the public's pay-off of Taka 6,796 crore as bribes to government officials estimated by the TIB survey is based on fiction, not hard facts. The amount is a survey-based estimate but dubbing it as imaginary is self-deprecating and an attempt at protecting the corrupt ones."

Should the ACC question the former ministers MK Anwar, Mannan Bhuiyan, Moudud Ahmed, Saifur Rahman, Principal Secretary Kamal Siddiqui, adviser Mofazzal Karim Chowdhury and the likes, much useful information might be unearthed about their roles in covering up the graft and profiteering which came to define the Khaleda years. What did they know, when did they come to know it, and what did they do or not do?

As reported by this daily many BNP leaders hold the party chairperson responsible for failure to check widespread corruption and power abuse by her son and his close associates. Isn't she an accomplice as well?

Plato once observed: "The city where those who rule are least eager to do so will be the best governed." The truths of Plato's statement are progressively being realized from the governance of the current CTG. The politicians who are aspiring to rule should assess their competence and honesty relative to the majority of the CTG advisers and address their deficiencies wherever they exist.

One of the great dilemmas faced by nations concerns the fact that the individuals most attracted to politics might not be the most desirable rulers. Indeed, one might infer that it is perhaps those most likely to abuse any authority given to them that are most likely to be drawn to the political realm. This is consistent with David Brin, who said "power attracts the corruptible."

We hear that democratic reforms are being instituted in both AL and BNP. What reforms? The exhausted and old faces will continue as the voices of the party. Already people are saying: "Oh, no, not again." They are the symbol of incompetence and mismanaged leadership. Skeptics are wondering if intra-party reforms are for real or simply window dressing.

For example, BNP has expressed a desire to resuscitate itself with a new vision. But a mere purging of the party's more venal members won't be enough. The party must undergo an overhaul in which the corrupt, incompetent, and failed leaders must be expressly prevented from ever having influence in the party's affairs ever again.

Khaleda has reasons to put pressure on the CTG to hold early elections -- namely, to retard the hunt for the corrupt in her party and decelerate the on going reforms. BNP is hurting the most by losing more and more of its thieves and thugs every day. Hasina, instead of putting pressure for early election, should take advantage of the situation and support the CTG.

Although highly unlikely, some people have an ominous premonition that the two arch-rivals could forge a common front to derail the CTG from the path of successful reform. If that happens, they will win; those in prison will win; those waiting to be booked will win; corruption will win, looting will re-emerge, and politics as usual (hartals, lock-outs and blockades) will return.

Charles De Gaulle once said: "I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. Even Nikita Khrushchev believed: "Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river."

What we need then is checks and balances. To this end, the formation of central and district-based task forces comprised of members of the army, Rab and intelligence agencies to combat corruption and criminal activities is a good omen.

The CTG's move to reconstitute and rejuvenate the dormant NSC to ensure national security and accountability is another laudable venture. Hopefully, the NSC would be an additional channel through which people's concerns can be communicated to the government and thus dispel French thinker Paul Valéry's observation: "Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them."

Sorry folks, but the prospect of being a politician won't be as alluring any more.

Dr. Abdullah A Dewan is Professor of Economics at Eastern Michigan University.