The entire process was a travesty from beginning to end. From the start, the plan was clearly ill-conceived, but even an ill-conceived plan can be executed with a minimal level of efficiency. From the contradictory public statements of the interim government, to the apparent failure to take care of elementary issues such as the agreement of one of the intended host countries, to the issuance and withdrawal of warrants and the filing and dropping of charges -- the entire sorry spectacle has only succeeded in diminishing the much-needed credibility of the interim administration.

Indeed, the interim government's record over the past three months has certainly left much to be desired. But perhaps I am being too harsh. In mitigation, one could argue that the reform agenda that it has chalked out is unprecedented in its scope and ambition, so that errors are inevitable, and that things are certainly not helped by the fact that the council of advisers is not the only body making and implementing executive decisions.

Perhaps this is, in fact, the crux of the problem. One of the main hesitations that many have had about the functioning of this caretaker government is that it remains unclear where authority is ultimately invested and that there is neither transparency as far as how decisions are made or accountability for those who make them. That a government without transparency and accountability is more likely to make mistakes than one, which is transparent and accountable is Politics 101.

Thus, perhaps the way forward for the interim government to regain its credibility and to ensure that further missteps (and there have been plenty, not just the "minus two" plan, e.g. slum eviction, removal of hawkers markets, etc) are not taken is to operate with greater transparency and openness. Essentially, what I would suggest for any government, democratically elected or otherwise.

Both problems -- lack of transparency and confusion over who is running the show -- have the same root: right now power is being shared between the interim government and the army, and there is no unitary executive authority.

The solution is for the caretaker government to operate with the same level of openness that we would expect from any government and for it to make clear to its backers in the army that the more authority the government has and the smaller the role the army has in running the affairs of state, the better.

To the extent that without the state of emergency, at the behest of the army, the nation would have been subjected to a farcical one-sided election on January 22, the fact that the army has stepped in and is playing a role in carrying out much-needed reform, while problematic, is not necessarily a bad thing. Similarly, it can be argued that but for the army, the likes of Tarique Rahman would never be behind bars, and this too is a positive intervention

But, however necessary army support is for the current state of affairs, we should all be able to agree that the smaller the role it plays and the further in the background it stays, the better -- both for the country and for the armed forces as an institution.

No one wants martial law or for the army to take more direct control over the affairs of state. Even those with no memory of our last unhappy experience of military rule instinctively sense that no possible good can come of such an eventuality.

However, the most worrisome aspect of the current dispensation is the establishment of a governance culture without transparency and accountability and rule of law. Not that this is anything new for us. Indeed, these were the hallmarks of the last elected government. But in many ways the current situation is far more opaque.

No one knows who is making what decisions and on what basis. With fundamental rights suspended and it being unclear what the chain of command is and what the relations are between the various parties sharing power, we don't even know how to go about seeking transparency and accountability for decisions made and actions taken.

Nevertheless, even knowing all of this about the past three months, many Bangladeshis have been willing to go along and give the current situation the benefit of the doubt. The thinking behind this attitude has been that cleaning up Bangladesh's politics and creating a truly level playing field for the next elections was always going to require some degree of irregularity, but that this was the price that we had to pay. These were acceptable costs.

But key to the notion that the costs of the enterprise were acceptable was the belief that this was a temporary situation only and that the army would quietly move into the background when things were done. In retrospect, it always was a gamble, requiring a great deal of faith and trust, and, of course, good sense.

All things considered, it seems to me that the most prudent course of action for the nation would be for the interim government to wrap up the anti-corruption and election reform drives as quickly as possible and move towards elections at the earliest.

If certain politicians are banned from politics as a result of their crimes and misdeeds, that would be a good thing. Most of the problems in the system can be resolved with appropriate legislation.

One hopes that the shock of the past three months will be sufficient that, moving forward, it will ensure that the corruption and the criminalisation of politics can be reduced to a minimum.

This may not be the grand sweeping reform that many had once hoped for. But the truth is that that was always an unlikely prospect and it is becoming crystal clear that the risks associated with the current situation may soon outweigh the likelihood of a positive outcome.

It seems to me that the best we can hope for now, realistically, would be to ensure that the very worst offenders are removed from public life and that systemic changes be put in place to make it difficult for the kind of criminalisation of politics we have endured for so long to return, and to move forward. It is not a perfect solution, but it might just be our best bet now.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.