Households suffer from voltage fluctuations and load shedding that cost electrical and electronic items (not to speak of cooling under electric fans); shop keepers have to face lower volume of sales due to frequent load shedding ,and so on and so forth.

Few minutes back, as I was listening to what our State Minister for Power was briefing to the private TV channels about the crisis and the ways to confront them, power went off three times within three minutes. But suddenly it came on with the sad news from the minister that there is no hope of additional electricity generation, especially during the remaining period of the present government.

Five years for a government is not a short time to set up plants for electricity generation. We fail to understand why the government miserably failed to generate even one additional unit of electricity over the last four and a half years. Whereas we have been hearing that a "flood of development" swept over the country since the present regime came to power. In a world where access to electricity is considered to be one of the indicators of development, how could that have happened without the generation of additional electricity?

We are equally perturbed to point out that 90 per cent of the petrol pumps ran dry of fuel during the last couple of days. As the TV channels showed and newspapers reported, widespread panic and uncertainty has been hunting people. We observed how drivers have been desperately looking for fuel in power pump stations. Noticeably, it is the poor segment of the society which had been hit hurt by the crisis. Long route buses faced shortage of fuel and thus had to postpone trips at times.

The most ridiculous episode seems to be the equation, as set by the authorities between demand and supply of fuels. According to the Advisor to the Energy Ministry, the country has sufficient stock of fuel and the current crisis could be the creation of the petrol pump owners to reap home a rich fortune through building up stocks. On the other hand, the pump owners complained that they had been receiving two-thirds to half of their daily requirements. Even without entering into a debate over the statistics of fuel supply, we can see that serious crisis is creeping concerning the supply of fuel in stations.

Almost at the same time, the country was caught by the crisis of fertilizer. Suddenly the supply of fertilizers faced crisis and the farmers had to buy at higher prices. Both fertilizer and power crises crippled poor farmers who eke out a living from growing crops in their lands.

Crisis has also crept up in the political corner. The 14-party alliance demanded that no anti-liberation force should sit in the dialogue destined to chalk out the reforms concerning Election Commission and the Caretaker Government. However, the government included the names of those in the team and the 14-party alliance rejected such inclusion. That means the dialogue is dead and street agitations, hartals, and siege programs are going to cast crisis on the political front.

We strongly argue that without drastic reforms of the Election Commission and the Caretaker Government, no credible election in the country can be expected. We also strongly feel that the government should have shown a sense of sagacity and sincerity by properly responding to the opposition 14-party alliance's demand.

The reasons are not far to seek. First, the anti-liberation forces, allegedly, have connections with JMB. Many of the arrested JMB activists have already disclosed that. Thus, sitting with these forces could mean sitting with JMB for dialogues in furthering democracy in which JMB has no faith.

Second, Jamaat is yet to apologize for their heinous activities during the war of liberation and still they believe in the politics of religion. A party that opposed the creation of Bangladesh should not become the mentor of the country. However, for BNP's political gain, the party has accommodated the anti-liberation forces but that does not imply that the government will have to take them in all the dialogues with the opposition. We feel that the government could earn mileage by dropping the anti-liberation forces from the list of the team sent to the opposition party.

Thus there are two crises at the moment: the power crisis and the crisis of power. The former stems from the failure of the government in establishing power plants during its five year tenure. The latter crisis comes from the "law of motion" of the party in power. For its very existence, BNP embraces the anti-liberation forces, and neglect to that force is thought to be creating the crisis of power in the future.

But a close look at the dynamics could show that all the crises that the present government faced over the years were due to the presence of the anti-liberation forces with them. Recall that during 1991-96 period, BNP government had to face a much lesser crisis than now when it has a two-thirds majority in the parliament along with the anti-liberation forces. BNP should have accepted the proposal of the 14-party alliance in reforming the Election Commission and the Caretaker Government system for its long-term political gain.

All of these crises will have adverse impact on economic growth, investment and social stability in the coming days. Taking the warning that no election could be credible without the participation of all parties as a wake up call, the government should immediately revise the list of its participants in the dialogue and thus avert a much greater crisis looming large on the horizon. The sooner it is realized, the better it is for all of us.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.