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The best of times, the worst of times
Notwithstanding its unfinished ngenda and half-done undertakings, including the much-vaunted anticorruption drive, the caretakers' reaching a broad understanding with the politicians while taking the nation along towards a democratic transition can be considered the magnum opus of their achievement, if any.
It's a refreshing experience that the country is readying for the much-awaited national election by the end of the year. We are told that the nation is pretty well on the highway towards the election and asked to maintain its momentum.
In achieving this feat a stage has, however, been reached when the authorities will have to sift what is practicable from a perfectionist view of things. Otherwise it may
lose its way in a cloud-cuckoo-land, missing what is almost in its grasp.
A reality check suggests that the arrangements crafted by the authorities for an orderly change of guard, ensuring at the same time a qualitative change of the polity, will just come crashing down, rendering the progress already made to go haywire if it continues to tread the never-never land of unachievable utopian ideas in the name of reforms.
Stretching matters too for is not always wise and can be counterproductive for everything has its elastic limit beyond which things usually end up in whimper. More so, at this critical time when the forces which sullied the past and
have little prospect in election may feel tempted to throw a spanner in the whole process of the historic transformation.
There are happy tidings that with the major differences between the politicians and the government reduced to bare minimum, that the rest can also be conveniently taken care of, as has been disclosed by spoke persons of both the AL and BNP which matter most in the ongoing dialogueafter Thursday's crucial meeting with the government.
The BNP has toned down its schizophrenic demands and fallen in line with the EC's registration conditionality, of course, after a good deal of histrionics. The AL, ever reconciliatory to the govern-
ment initiative and scheme of things has apparendy no major discomfort with the election schedule and plan.
Yet, there is a gray area which may render the electoral highway non-negotiable for both the AL and BNP, although both are positive on the participation in election. There is as yet no unequivocal official commitment with regard to the electoral status of both the top political leaders, Sheikh Hasina and Madam Zia; neither is there a clear official position on the lifting of emergency.
Both the top leaders' participation in the election and the liftingof emergency constitute irrevocable stands in the litany of demands by both the AL and BNP. The authorities' response in this regard is
ambivalent at best, although it docs not reject them outright. There is still a great deal of opti mlsm that tills Achilles' Heel can be removed thanks to the brinkman ship of Hossain Zillur Rahman, the establishment's principal interlocutor.
So far, so good. We, the members of the public, also want to remain glued to this optimism. Now there can be debates and discourses with regard to the nitty-gritty of the electoral exercise Itself, but a lid must be put on any major bargaining any more over post-electoral power equations in the name of reformsand soon.
After all, the present dispensation cannot cleanse the Augean Stable overnight. Let there be something left also for the collective wisdom of the people who are the critical mass of our democracy and not the urban elite who constitute the political leadership. It is only they who matter in taking Bangladesh out of the mess it is stuck in.
The caretaker dispensation will absolve itself only by empowering those peripheral, incidental, and marginal millions through a credible election for which the stage is apparently set But then we live in uncertain times and are on tenterhooks. While the BNP-led alliance has hardly changed much in sub-
stance, the disruptive forces contradicting the established values of the nation and denigrating our primordial cultutal symbols have been baring their fangs.
The broad spectrum of religious righta euphemism for the extended support base of BNP-Jamaati so-called “nationalist-lslamist" goonsare ominously on the rise. Their showdown with regard to the baul sculpture as well as the incendiary pronouncements of the leaders in the name of religion are pointers.
Yet the people and the authorities have a common stake in the election and are steadily moving towards a collective purpose in spite of snags awaiting their removal. The government may have a different perspective and action plan to deal with the looming danger, but the people are quite capable of dealing with the contin gencies if allowed to exercise their electoral right unfettered.
The authorities have brought the nation to a valley both of hope and despair. How the situation eventually comes to pass will determine their ultimate success or failure. We, the public, want to trust in the government's sincerity of purpose and its oft-repeated optimism.
Brig (retd) Hafiz is former DG of BUSS