It is largely because of the fact that AL has over the years moved away from its original ideological moorings. It has, under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, conveniently shied away from people's fundamental democratic rights, communal harmony, rule of law, and truth and justice, which were the shibboleths of AL when it galvanised the people for independence in 1971 under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

AL has ceased to be a pro-people party that it used to be under the enlightened leadership of Sheikh Mujib. A party organised at the grass-roots level throughout the length and breadth of the country has lost touch with the people. It has become so not because there is dearth of good and able men and women in the party but because the leadership based purely on politics of dynasty has been thrust upon it most undemocratically.

Sheikh Hasina has been at the helm of AL for three decades now. Leave aside the Gen Ershad era. From 1991 till 2006, AL contested parliamentary election thrice and won only once. In democracy how a political party fares in election is the true measure of the party leadership. And the party leadership resigns quickly after the party has suffered electoral reverse. Despite such colossal reversal, Sheikh Hasina is still the president of AL. This is the democracy the AL chief believes in.

Besides, there is no denying that there has been a steep climb down from Sheikh Mujib to Sheikh Hasina in terms of leadership of AL. Bangabandhu was a natural leader of the masses. He moved from village to village and from house to house to identify himself with their hopes and sufferings. People's sufferings moved him as his very sight and presence inspired people. He wielded power and authority but remained above corruption. He lived in his own modest house and moved about in a small car. There was no pretension about his love for the people. Can we say the same thing about his daughter? No.

She has clearly distanced herself from the masses. She seldom moves about among the people and hardly cares to know the village elders and their sufferings. She loves pomp and grandeur. Big and luxurious cars and palatial houses attract her. While Sheikh Hasina has hardly any leadership qualities, let alone the rare qualities of head and heart and the charisma of her illustrious father, she thinks that being the daughter of the great man who led us to freedom in 1971 alone entitles her to claim the AL leadership and the premiership of this country as well. She is downright haughty and imperious in her behaviour. It is not only the autocratic manner in which she has been running the affairs of AL but also her very poor and inept leadership coupled with her insatiable greed for power and wealth which has brought the party to such a pass.

If you go by the number of seats AL has won in the parliamentary elections since 1991 the graph shows a pathetic continuous downward curve. In 1996 when Sheikh Hasina formed the AL government for the first and last time in the last sixteen years. She succeeded in doing so only with the support of Gen. Ershad's Jatiya Party (JP) the symbol of autocracy in this country because AL did not have absolute majority to form government.

She felt no qualms in going to the fallen dictator for his support in the parliament. She inducted Anwar Hussain Manju of JP in her cabinet and called it cleverly "oikkya moter" (meaning consensus) government. She even asked BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) to join her government. It was most certainly not a gesture of magnanimity.

Most of her critics and detractors and even sympathisers of AL would attribute the waning support of the electorate for AL to Sheikh Hasina's rather imperious and haughty temperament and intemperate words. She very often offends people in authority by remarks unbecoming of her position as a party chief and a former prime minister.

In 1991 election the general mood of the people was by and large in favour of AL until at the last moment it swung away as Sheikh Hasina in her TV and radio address to the nation instead of being humble and appealing to the people for vote spoke and conducted herself as if she had already become the prime minister of Bangladesh. Humility is something abundantly missing in her.

If my memory serves me well, some time towards the end of last AL rule while addressing the people at the national parade square as prime minister she made some very disparaging remarks about Khaleda Zia, then the opposition leader, which left even many sympathisers and supporters of AL ruing it.

Again, when Justice Latifur Rahman was the chief advisor of the caretaker government, she for reasons best known to her made a provocative remark about him, saying that being the chief advisor of a care taker government was not the equivalent of being the prime minister of an elected government. Of late she has suddenly become a very vocal critic of the present caretaker government as it has hauled up some tainted AL leaders and some more are likely to be caught in the anti-corruption dragnet. But she and her AL leaders looked most jubilant at the swearing ceremony of this interim government at Bangabhaban.

She has accused the government of "a weak constitutional basis." She has also accused the government of "wasting time in the name of reforms." Now she has expressed her reservation about the legitimacy of the national budget announced by the government in the absence of a parliament. She said that no tax could be levied on the people without their elected representatives. She also found nothing in the budget to end people's woes.

Clearly, Sheikh Hasina is on a collision course with this military-backed caretaker government, which is committed to holding a credible election before the end of 2008 after the due process of essential reforms and accountability of the political bigwigs involved in plundering and looting and corruption on a monstrous scale has been completed.

Her clear stance against this government is most ill-advised and ill-motivated, as it will certainly not help either her or the AL , but rather will only harden the attitude of this government towards AL insofar as coming down hard on those involved in making personal fortunes by misuse of power and authority is concerned. Besides Sheikh Hasina as AL chief and former prime minister may also face a probe as startling revelations are coming to light through interrogation of detainees now in government custody.

There is a monumental case of abuse and misuse of state power and authority by her because towards the fag end of her AL rule, she enacted a law called Father of the Nation Family Members Security Act by which she sought to grab the sprawling Ganobhaban Complex, the then prime minister's official residence for her and another house for her sister and to enjoy together with her sister lavish state facilities of personal security, transportation, protocol, etc for as long as they would live, almost like members of a royal family, all at the expense of the state.

Incidentally this act of grabbing the Ganobhaban by Sheikh Hasina on the eve of election perhaps cost AL the 2001 parliamentary election because people soon got disenchanted with her and AL. Although she quickly moved out of the Ganobhaban to her husband's house to allay peoples misgivings, it was of no consequence because by then the damage had already been done.

Sheikh Hasina had a golden opportunity to rebuild AL after the setback it suffered first at the hands of Ziaur Rahman and then Gen. Hussain Mohammad Ershad. But it was not to be. It is largely because of her poor leadership that a luminary like Dr. Kamal Hossain, a close confidante of Bangabandhu, had to leave AL.

After 2001 electoral defeat, AL was in such a mess that it could not dare take part in election due in 2007 unless it entered into an alliance with other parties which came to be known as the Grand Alliance. The AL that we see now is an emaciated AL which needs a massive dose of democratisation therapy to make it a healthy political party capable of regaining its lost glory.

Brigadier General Shamsuddin Ahmed is a freedom fighter and former Military Secretary to the President of Bangladesh.