Apparently, the observation is circumstantially correct because I am neither a political leader nor a foot soldier of the contending parties. It, however, does not tell the whole truth, since a citizen is the fountainhead of a government, and the political process that powers it. There would have been no government had the citizens not ceded a part of their rights to constitute a government, nor a political process had there been no voters queuing up, in rain or shine, to cast their votes.

The ordinary citizen was most probably not uppermost in the agenda when the two major parties met to find a way out of the impasse on the issue of the caretaker government head. Apprehension of a Trojan horse in the caretaker chief, and the stubbornness of not giving in to an inflexible opponent dominated the dialogue that ultimately ended in failure. The bottom line is that the two major parties of the country do not trust each other. This necessarily brings in the option of caretaker government. For them talking on contentious issues is a matter of who blinks first. At the ballots the electorate are to choose, and trust those who do not trust one another. It is therefore a flawed option for the ordinary citizen.

Indeed, even in the United States the president packs the Supreme Court with men of his choice. Our governments also do it. The last one did it, and the one before it also did it. In the 2001 general election the 4-party alliance was swept into power with two-thirds majority, even though they had none of their men as the president, as the Caretaker Government Chief, as the Chief Election Commissioner or as the Army Chief. It was not enough for them to learn that when the ordinary citizens speak up they do not need their men to run the machinery in their favour. It applies for all parties and all situations.

They resorted to crafting a combination in their favour. It amounted to dishonouring the public mandate. The mandate was a heady wine for them. They started drifting. Soon the ordinary citizens were in distress. It started hurting them when daily living became a burden to bear, and oppressive owing to faltering utilities. The price hike was bewildering. Almost every commodity of daily necessity for an ordinary citizen was hit by steep rises, with no rational market phenomenon to justify it. It was imprecise and uncaring of the government functionaries to find a rationale for it in the dynamics of market economy.

The difference in prices in different parts of the country brings into focus the transportation factor. It is well known that transportation pays a large price because of extortion at different points on the highways. The will to rid inter-district transportation of this banditry was not applied. It was passed on to the ordinary citizen.

Electricity changes lifestyle. It becomes the right of the consumers that use it. Power outage affects the ordinary consumer the most. Frequent power cuts during the last five years devastated the common man's life. It was a strange phenomenon; instead of improving, the situation deteriorated as the term of the last government was gradually coming to end. The then state minister for power was reported to be against smaller power plants.

It was never clear what he was in favour of till he departed on the eve of the government's completion of its term. The performance of the minister was phlegmatic. There was no clear idea of how the minister wanted to move forward. If not small power plants, was he in favour of behemoths of 1000 MW, or large plants like 450 MW? And what would be the source of the energy, gas, coal or imported furnace oil? His preferences were inscrutable. The common man suffered even when technical and financial support for power plants were not difficult to get. What I have gathered is that you need facilitators to line up the support for it. Bangladesh has lost five years of initiative.

The purpose of this write up is not wholesale indictment of the last government. Rather, it is to point out that the political parties, in or out of power, should not drift away from the foremost consideration, that of the common people. The political programs and strategies should not resort to brinkmanship that jeopardizes the personal liberties of the common man, and paralyzes public life. We have successfully won the war of independence, and it will amount to siege mentality to think, or act, in a way that makes our independence vulnerable. There is no credible reason for "storming the Bastille."

The British ruled India for 200 years, but Mahatma Gandhi never preached violence against the Raj, instead he was always in favour of engaging them. In his stewardship of the Indian independence struggle he was discreet in treating the British as one of the parties in realizing the final goal of freedom for India. He led the Indian people to engage the British, not to confront them, and saved India from the consuming fire of confrontational hostilities. The gospel of non-violent protest, or satyagrah, he preached has survived through the ages as an enduring political method.

The civil rights leader Martin Luther King followed it, and even Nelson Mandela saw rewards in it for maintaining racial harmony in South Africa. Mandela spent 27 years in jail under apartheid led South Africa, and five of them in solitary confinement in Robben Island. Rage was his right, and inflammatory statements by him would have plunged South Africa into catastrophe. He rose above his rage, and became an icon to the world.

I am sure our leader of the opposition also has good knowledge of what I have said. But did she trust her knowledge when she called her party workers to come to Dhaka with logi (bamboo poles) and baitha (oars)? Understandably, these items are dear to her because these are associated with her party symbol of boat. It is difficult to believe that a lady of her rich political legacy was not aware of the consequences of the lethal use of these items when they were in the hands of emotionally charged foot soldiers of her party.

It would be naïve to think that she regarded the party workers of the other side as the followers of Gandhism, not the ones who cut the tendons. The use of firearms was a tragic sequel. The death toll of Black Saturday is officially 28. Should we still believe that the leader of the opposition did not realize the inflammatory nature of her pronouncement when she called her party men to come along with logi and baitha? This is one example from which our political parties will permanently learn the consequences of brinkmanship. If not, God bless the country.

The outgoing prime minister, in her farewell speech, gladdened us much by informing that foreign remittance has gone up from 1 billion dollar to 4 billion dollar, and that there has been considerable rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country. Although the credit for the remarkable rise in foreign remittance should go to our hard working overseas expatriate community, one should say that the government was doing its coordinating job properly.

As far as the outgoing government's management of the economy was concerned, the stigma of corruption has stuck to it stubbornly. I do not recall of any convincing rebuttal by the government discounting the allegations as being unfounded. The personal integrity of the outgoing prime minister was at stake because the story of the prince's share in every deal was showing no signs of dying down, or of being nailed as a canard.

The phenomenal rise of the new mogul loomed too large for even the generous to a fault to ignore it. The new mogul's fortunes are for everybody to see. He is now a media mogul, and the owner of bank, too. There were two gentlemen of letters, one French and the other English -- late lamented Victor Hugo and William Wordsworth. Victor Hugo in his elevated state said: "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." And Mr. Wordsworth said: "No decent man can suddenly become rich." Bangladesh, and so to say almost every country, has many such examples. If you dig who knows what you can come up with.

To sum up, I should say that the political parties, as a mater of integrity, should remain religiously focused on the greatest of all considerations, the common man. Sanity will then quickly return to politics.

Syed Maqsud Jamil is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.