A petition has also been made to the judiciary on the constitutional competence of the present interim government to govern and the Election Commission to function. While any exploration into the question of accountability of the government in power is to be encouraged, one must, at the same time, be conscious of a citizen's responsibility to the dynamic of the prevailing situation before attempts are made to change the existing structure.

One may consider the task of the present interim government to be a "civilizing mission" to reform a fallen and decrepit system in order to form institutional structures which would make elections meaningful, in the place of electoral democracy which more often than not turned into majoritarian dictatorship for the country and for the political party/parties which had come out successful in the "first past the post" system currently in place.

Albeit the term "civilizing mission" smacks of colonialism, comparable to the early Europeans' discovery of India as a decadent civilization instead of a pristine Aryan civilization, yet the need for inscription of new code of conduct for the politicians cannot be overemphasized.

One may very well question the efficacy of a system whereby the citizens are asked to vote once every five years, when the same citizens are sanguine that their lot is not going to change. The frustration accumulated over the years may have been transformed into a kind of fatalism.

But there is the distinct possibility that such frustration, the result of deception by the elected leaders, can turn into violent expression, threatening the seeming societal stability and effectively fracturing the society into haves and have-nots of different shades. In this milieu, religious militants of al-Qaeda variety, who have already made their presence known in the country, can easily get recruits for their jihadi campaign to establish Islamic rule.

The recent arrest of Zadid al-Qaeda followers, after the execution of JMB leaders and bomb blasts in three railway stations, gives rise to fresh doubts about the extinction of religious fanaticism in Bangladesh. The question that may be asked is whether the present interim government, or the future elected government, would be better equipped to deliver the social goods sorely needed by the people.

Unquestionably, the mess created by the immediate past four-party alliance government through mal-administration and the government formed after the emergency rule proclaimed on January 11 has halted unbridled corruption. If an election is held soon it is doubtful that the Augean stables can be cleared, and it may not produce much qualitative change in the politics of the nation.

More likely than not the trial of the corrupt will be put on hold, and the fugitives from justice will reappear taking advantage of old political connections which, in the past, had been bonded through money and muscle during long association with political leaders.

Fear, perhaps justifiably, has been expressed by some that alternatives to elected governments in the past did not produce good results for the people, and democracy was only traded for veiled dictatorship which did not always administer the country through distilled judgment and sometimes either encouraged, or got involved directly in, corruption.

But if "not-perfect-but-good-enough-governance" is symptomatic of societies immersed in pre-industrial primordial tribal values, then it may not be logical to expect the type of governance we seek to emulate from the West.

In many Third World countries we see only travesty of democracy despite intervention by the Colossus and/or encouragement from it and its allies. If one were to glance at the fifty odd members of the OIC one can count only a handful of democratic countries. Situation is no different in countries professing other faith than Islam.

One cannot, therefore, establish a causal relationship between lack of democracy and any particular faith. On the other hand, the level of economic development and neighbourhood effect, identified by Francis Fukuyama as necessary conditions for transformation into a democratic system, could explain the fourth wave of democracy in former Eastern Europe, which had a high level of economic development, and direct encouragement in the form of incorporation in Nato and the European Union. This is certainly lacking in the case of non-Europeans, who formed a world system peopled with a dominant and wealthy core and an impoverished and subservient periphery.

In countries like Bangladesh one has to determine the priority regarding the political right to vote over the economic right to live. One may argue that political right, in effect, improves the prospect of furthering economic development. This is because the top down economic development model once favoured by the developed countries and Western economists later proved to be inadequate in addressing the core issue of poverty. It helped increase the income disparity between the rich and the poor, a situation that continues till today despite efforts by Western powers to help the developing countries to get out of the trap of underdevelopment.

In our case, the success in various sectors of the society achieved by the interim government in its short period in power, and acknowledged by the great majority of the people, devolves upon us the responsibility to be patient, to enable the interim government, Election Commission, Anti-Corruption Commission, and the allied agencies to complete their mission. A return to locust years of barren economic development and corrupt administration must be avoided at all cost.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.