Barring a last-minute dissuading oracle of an inner voice wafting through Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s mind, the Jan 5 election is upon the people.

Given the troubled preludes to national elections over the last two decades, can Bangladesh’s major political parties have a decent claim to democratic credentials? The question answers itself. And, with the customary rejection of poll results by the vanquished party coupled with the boycott of parliament for the most part of its tenure by the opposition, democracy was reduced to an election-only exercise. Even that bit of people's right to franchise is now under threat.

The least said about the missing fervour and festivity associated with competitive well fought-out elections, the better. This is a great pity when you consider the fact that people in these parts have had elections since the British India Act of 1935 barring the dictatorial interludes.

That landmark Act marked the introduction of representative government in the subcontinent. There have been anecdotes of electoral contests from those times. One that stands out head and shoulder above the present standards relates to the then incumbent chief minister of Bengal Khawaja Nazimuddin versus A.K.M. Fazlul Haque in Patuakhali constituency. The chief minister played out his official paraphernalia with his fleet of launches but Fazlul Haque would sit down to eating from a bowl of pantha bhat (water soaked rice) with a voter family beating his rival hands down.

So, from that point of view, despite our rich political heritage Bangladesh is going down the slippery slope of being a banana republic!

As if to bear this out ANEKI.com, an independent, privately operating website based in Toronto, Canada has ranked Bangladesh 18th on a list of 20 politically most unstable countries in the world. Their data compilation sources are UN agencies and America’s CIA. Bangladesh is in the company of Nigeria, Ethiopia, North Korea, Yemen and Timor. Its score point is 98.1 compared to Pakistan's 104.1.

Basically, Bangladesh is in the same broader bracket of Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Chad, Congo Democratic Republic, Iraq, Afghanistan and Central African Republic of Guinea.

In another listing of 10 countries under the head Next Year's Wars (by Louise Arbour in FP, USA), Bangladesh which was not included last year in the antonym of Ivy League has gained an entry into it.

Indeed, Bangladesh is finding place among such troubled groups of nations that it had never even been named unwittingly for rubbing shoulders with.

Why Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and opposition leader Khaleda Zia still remain stone-deaf to good counsel? People tend to blame their insensitivity on egotism and even on the high stakes they hold in winning elections. But the overarching lesson of history speaks otherwise. As they say, 'history teaches that it doesn't,' but empirical knowledge is surely something to go by.

Such knowledge establishes two facts: One, it is on the street that contentious political problems have been solved, forcing a ruling party into a discussion mode with the opposition and; two, when an understanding was reached, the outcome would be sealed, signed and delivered through undemocratic parliaments coming into being by the vice of one-sided election.

The pressures from Bangladesh’s international well-wishers and the constant warnings from civil society and independent media about the consequences regardless, the political parties hang on to their experiential instincts. They do so with greater vengeance as their interests get ever more entrenched.

The prospect of a miracle was revived, howsoever faintly, by British and US envoys having met the opposition leader who is held in virtual confinement. The British High Commissioner went across to meet Awami League General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam to be told perhaps that talks could take place after the polls. The last ditch effort to soft pedal their influence in getting the parties to read from the same page turned into inclement weather-taking, so to speak.

The principal stakeholder India, however, rests content with its bilateral approach. Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and its prestigious daily The Hindu have voiced their concerns with subtle differences in tone and temper, if not in texture.

Salman indicated that India's proximity to Bangladesh propels it to have its own assessments of the unfolding scenario in the next door neighbour and its implications in bilateral and regional terms. He argued that anything of conflictive nature happening in Bangladesh has its ripple effect on India and vice versa. This is because of their respective demographic compositions and contiguity to each other. So, Indian perceptions are likely to differ from the long distance reckonings of the USA.

On the one hand, the Devyani issue refuses to go away between India and USA; and on the other, KSA has bankrolled Lebanon and Jordan over the head of USA which undercuts America’s clout with KSA to be a benefactor of the right-of-centre party in Bangladesh.

The newspaper Hindu and, in fact, a large segment of the Indian press, advised against hedging the bet on a single basket pointing to a certain India bashing mode, a shade different from the familiar variety. One can surmise, it is to this constituency that Khaleda may have appealed on the night of 29th; remember her sneaking allusion to Sikkim in a huff following her aborted Dhaka march program.

Officially, however, India maintains respect for popular verdict in a neighbouring country regardless of which way it might have gone.

How do we bring a closure to the stalemate? The constitutional route has been theoretically traversed but not practically taken to by the party which holds the dispensing authority, like it or not. The election over, the one-sided winner will be tested on its public pledge to hold the 11th general election based on full participation of political parties delivering a credible outcome.

Both parties will have to recognise the futility of the lose-lose option, adopt a win-win frame of mind and script a formula acceptable to both sides. The world has changed and so must they.

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star

By arrangement with The Daily Star/ANN