We are aware that the EC is pledge-bound to bring about some qualitative reforms of the existing electoral laws, by-laws, rules, Acts etc., which have been nakedly misused by the political players for the past fifteen years to pave the way for an unstoppable merry-go-round of plundering.

Therefore, should we not hide our faces in shame that a nation of 15 crore people could not stop about two thousand men and women committing such heinous crimes in broad daylight! Ponder a while, only about two hundred people have flattened our hills and forests in the last ten years!

The roadmap has made it mandatory for the political parties to register themselves by mid 2008, otherwise they will not be allowed to take part in the elections. Surely, most of the political parties of the country will find it ego-busting.

"Isn't the EC going overboard in its attempts to regulate political parties? Isn't this a free-for-all country? Didn't we attain our freedom in 1971 to do anything as we please, like grabbing lakes, forests, hills, tigers, deer, peacocks, government houses, and even the longest beach at Cox's Bazar? Who needs to register for doing this?" -- some politicians would wonder aloud.

But think about it dear readers. Registration of a political party is a propriety that is observed by politicians everywhere. This rather gives a party more credibility and prestige amongst its followers, and even before the opposition parties.

Similarly, doctors have to register, engineers have to register, university professors have to register, business houses have to register, every birth, marriage and death has to be registered. Then why didn't the major political parties of Bangladesh ever think of following the good practice? Are they above the laws and regulations that make them answerable to some authority?

We welcome such reforms because these were the demands of the saner section in society for many years. So, now, after the expected reforms, elections will be held. Fine. Then what? Have we been able to throw all the corrupt-to-the-bone politicians into the dustbin of time? Are the political parties totally clear of the people who had plundered the public exchequer for so many years? Have we found the clean candidates to contest the elections and form the next government? What kind of people will come as elected representatives to form the government?

To be candid, clean candidates remain as elusive as ever, hence what we fear is the misfortune of seeing the same old faces back on the political track, kicking up dust to start the rat race. Already we are witnessing politicians with questionable antecedents jumping around with reform agendas, hoping to come to power once again. It is like saying for the umpteenth time: "Old wine in new bottle." Or shall we say, we get leaders we deserve. Don't we really deserve anything better than what we have in the cold storage?

Many questions haunt our minds today, when we look back and think of what had happened throughout the length and breadth of the country in the name of democracy and development. The people have been cheated right and left in broad daylight, and we simply watched from a distance. But what is the alternative? We cannot live in limbo forever, can we?

The other questions that haunt our minds is why honest and competent people are not coming forward to join political parties to contribute to nation building? We do not have any shortage of such respectable people. Then what scares them off?

Is it the age-old muscle-power-dependent and black-money-driven political system that still exists, from the cities to the village levels? Can we change the system through installing a new one, where only true patriots will come forward and where money will be not be the decisive factor? Is it really asking for too much?

Shahnoor Wahid is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.