It has, in the meantime, taken its lethal toll with at least two dead, both of whom fell victim to violence during the opposition's countrywide siege on July 2. The way the contenders in the conflict have hardened their position and the way our political trend is unraveling, the prevailing unrest will snowball into a major crisis.

Yet, there seems to be no visible attempt from any quarter to arrest the trend and bring back sanity to our political behaviour. Both the government and the AL-led 14 parties have been fighting their no-win war to vindicate their standpoint -- thus narrowing down in the process any middle ground that they could choose.

It is futile indeed to debate as to who is right and who is wrong and we could go on ad infinitum without serving any useful purpose. The need of the hour is to stop the hemorrhage occurring to the country's body politic as a ramification of which blood-letting has already been set in motion. It is time to bury the hatchet and not to pick up the gauntlet. That would exacerbate the situation beyond repair.

But unfortunately that's what the government is doing not only by giving a damn to whatever the AL-led 14 party demanded and also riding roughshod over the opposition activists whenever they took to the street to press their unfulfilled demands afresh. The opposition has been pre-emptively driven off the street thus provoking it to respond in the same coin. The police, led by BNP and Jaamat cadres, wreaked havoc with the peaceful precisionists who then reacted with the same fury. After all, all actions have their equal reactions -- as said in Newtorian theory. And the cycle goes on with police becoming increasingly shorn of any trace of civility and the public having no respect for the custodians of law and order.

The government leaders have so far been full of assurances of settling the issues through dialogue but miserably short on fulfilling those assurances. The government's actions do not carry any sign of its coming to term with the opposition's demands. As a result the crisis deepens.

But it's only the political dimension of the crisis. At the core of it lies the government's all-round failures and the resultant alienation of the people leading to 4-party alliance's fear of losing the election early next year. It's terrible loss of face with its failure to save hard-hit public from syndicated market manipulation resulting in unprecedented misery for them is a pointer. The prices of the essentials have spralled to an all-time high with few signs of relief any time soon.

Obviously only the change of this failed dispensation may rescue the people from its misrule steeped in unparalled corruption. But a free and fair election alone can bring about that change. Therefore, the people have been increasingly swelling the ranks of the protesters both against the misrule and against election engineering which has been going on rather surreptitiously.

The arbitrary appointment of a partisan Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), trickily worked out steps to have a partyman as the head of the caretaker government, the politicisation of the administration, as well as mystery surrounding the office of the President have all reinforced public scepticism that there cannot be a free and fair election without certain reforms in election mechanism. The delusions are that with which the government has been trying to parry those reform proposals.

In the name of preparation for the next election, what the government has so far displayed is simply sleight of hand, and it is still continuing with that. An outlandish CEC whose electoral rolls were rejected earlier for the lack of probity and one who was almost universally condemned for his puerile conduct is still hale and hearty in his place, although an EC headed by a man of integrity is sine qua non for a credible election. The government showed no interest in his removal, disregarding universal public demand.

Instead of positively responding to popular public demands, the government has naively taken a hardline which will intensify the prevailing unrest, having its effects on our wobbly economy, state of investment, as well trade and commerce. But the wielders of power need only an elixir of power to revitalise themselves. All governments, even in the past, behaved in the same manner when they were alienated from the people. They then started considering people their opponents and resorted to force to cow the agitating public into submission.

Tell-tale evidence abounds that the authority will have its last bit before it yields. It's both a war of nerve and wit. It remains to be seen whether the opposition which has not always played well can hold till then or peters out before its movement gains a decisive momentum.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.