The tragic flaw in the character of Tarique Rahman was his vaulting ambition, insatiable greed, and above all, the folly of pride and arrogance of power. Yet, a fair share of the blame for the phenomena of rise, decline and fall of Tarique Rahman must lie with his mother Khaleda Zia, the former prime minister who remained cynically impervious to his high handed excesses and gross misdeeds as an influence peddler to amass allegedly huge personal fortune and riches by underhand business deals and kickbacks.

By giving indulgence, if not active support to her son's indiscretions, she not only brought about her son's downfall but also presided over the liquidation of her vainglorious empire built, as reported extensively by newspapers, on absolute rule, plunder of national wealth, lie and deception, politics of plots and stratagems to crush the opposition and perpetuate her rule. But as truth always triumphs over falsehood, right over wrong, the edifice of her fond illusions of a return to power by manipulation and maneuverings has crashed and come tumbling down.

One after another, her son, her cabinet colleagues, her party leaders and law makers, cronies and henchmen are in jail on charge of corruption, criminal accumulation of unaccounted for fabulous wealth, thievery of relief materials for the poor and the destitute, expropriation of government land and properties, fleecing public exchequer, money laundering, lavish life style of owning multiple luxury houses, apartments and vast acres of countryside fun retreat with horse, deer and peacock safari park and a fleet of expensive duty free cars.

It is difficult to believe that she was unaware of the rot within her party. Some are in hiding, others are on the run. She is left forlorn with her hopes shattered and dreams dashed.

Her legacy is that her party, BNP, founded by her husband, late lamented President Ziaur Rahman untainted by any blemish, has lost its legitimacy and is in ruins. This is a harsh verdict of history. It will be quite some time for the BNP to pick up the pieces. One thing is clear that traditional politics in Bangladesh will not be the same again but yield to emergence of a new culture of politics by honest and competent people dedicated to serving the interest and welfare of people.

The composition of recent 4-member delegation each of Awami League and BNP to the election commission for early election, significantly predominated by former civil servants, conspicuously to the exclusion of senior politicians signalled the bankruptcy of two major political parties which must share equally the blame for betrayal of democracy.

The bitter harvest of disaster that Khaleda Zia is now reaping was not entirely unexpected. Democracy received a short shrift and drubbing in Bangladesh during last five years when the parliament was reduced to a rubber stamp of the ruling party by stifling the voice of the opposition. The democratic rights of the opposition to hold protest demonstration in the streets were brutally suppressed by police repression distinctive of fascist style.

It was frightening to see how a whole society was divided and splintered down in the middle by the evil of totalitarian regimentation based on party loyalty, in its every layer including bureaucracy, public service commission, teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, trade unions, journalists and intelligentsia creating an adversarial environment of distrust and enmity and destroying the fabric of national unity.

In such an overpowering culture of politicisation, civil service lost its neutrality. Merit, talent and seniority became a casualty. The mediocrity, the inefficient and the dishonest thrived and prospered causing long-term national damage.

The judiciary lost its credibility as it was twisted, turned and tailored at will to suit the needs and benefit of the regime. The Constitution was treated as a triviality when it was toyed and tinkered with interpolation and amendments providing for declaration of the independence of Bangladesh by Ziaur Rahman and raising the retirement age limit of Judges of the Supreme Court with the objective of making electoral gains.

Election pledge to separate the judiciary from the executive was breached regardless of 12 directives by the Supreme Court to take urgent action on the matter. Under her rule, kleptocracy, official corruption, was nourished and nurtured in gay abandon as an institution. The independent anti-corruption commission, instituted at the behest of donors was a mockery as it was deliberately rendered completely toothless and dysfunctional.

Infatuated by regal grandeur, Khaleda Zia cared little to listen to public opinion and assembled an inordinately large 60-member cabinet of ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers, besides a number of courtier advisers with the status of ministers. In style and substance her rule provided the most rivetting image of personality cult.

Like a megalomaniac authoritarian ruler who would brook no dissent or challenge to her authority, she showed the door of Bangabhaban to President Badruddoza Chowdhury, one of the founding members of BNP, for not visiting the grave of Ziaur Rahman and expelled BNP lawmaker Abu Hena from the party for his criticism of some corrupt ministers and law makers.

President B Chowdhury suffered the humiliating exit without a murmuring demur. As reported by newspapers, Nurul Islam, secretary in the PMO, lost his job and was framed up because he incurred her wrath for sending a letter containing allegations against Tarique Rahman to the relevant ministry.

In her splendid isolation she became increasingly distant from people and lost touch with reality as was manifest in the brutal suppression of discontent and protest demonstration by ordinary villagers of Kansat and Fulbari coal field demanding electricity and protection against ecological disaster and dispossession from their land and ancestral homes.

Yet, the crisis in the power sector, commotion in the coalfield and price rise were the result of mismanagement, bungling and corruption by the authorities. She explained the price rise of essential commodities as a sign of purchasing power of people in a free market economy.

She praised the high-rise buildings and spick and span shopping malls as a sign of rise in the standard of living of people completely oblivious of famished people in the north dying of starvation and the vast poor multitude sinking deeper and deeper in denial, deprivation and indignity.

A stranger to ethics and morality in politics, Khaleda Zia as a matter of political expediency to win victory in election, crafted electoral alliance with fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikya Jote regardless of their black record of collaboration with Pakistan occupation army which carried on atrocities and genocide in the then East Pakistan.

Her stubborn pursuit of return to power by resorting to every conceivable machination and subterfuge at the risk of throwing the country on the verge of a civil war was alarming. The politicisation of the entire election machinery, the extension of retirement age of supreme court judges in order to have a chief adviser of the caretaker government sympathetic to BNP and the unprecedented step of President Iajuddin Ahmed himself taking over as the chief adviser of the caretaker government are some of the glaring examples.

The darkest chapter of her rule was the rise of terrorist activities by Islamic extremists and militants in Bangladesh. Till the extremists posed a serious challenge to the authority of the state, she dismissed and turned a deaf ear to newspaper warnings about the danger of spiraling violence by proliferating number of militant groups and their past links with Islami Chatra Shibir, student front of Jamaat lest she should alienate the sympathy of her Islamic partners in the government.

The persecution of religious minority specially the Ahmadiya community added no less to suspicions of fundamentalist credentials of the government. The litany of aberrations and failures of five years rule of Khaleda Zia is long and painful.

Yet, BNP came to power for the second time with a resounding mandate of popular victory. People voted for BNP as an alternative for a change for the better. It was most unfortunate that its leadership opted to fritter away the opportunity, become irresponsible and betray the trust of the people. It lost sight of the lesson of election debacle of Awami League which was punished for not performing.

The welcome change of guards on January 11 as a savior of the nation has removed the darkening shadow of gloom and doom from the horizon of national landscape and has heralded the dawn of hope and promise of a new Bangladesh rooted in "justice and knowledge based society" as is so often reiterated by the chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed. They cannot and will not fail the expectation of people.

Abdul Hannan is a former Press Counselor, Bangladesh UN mission in New York.