I understand the theory that both have been a pernicious influence on Bangladeshi politics for the past fifteen years and that their continued leadership of their respective parties is the principal obstacle to the establishment of true liberal democracy in the country.

I understand the notion that as long as they remain at the helm that meaningful reform can never come to their parties, and, by extension, to the democratic culture of the country. I understand the idea that their leadership has stifled intra-party democracy and that they have instituted a culture of sycophancy and authoritarian rule by fiat.

I understand that in their attitudes and beliefs they personify the worst tendencies within the Bangladeshi body politic: the inability to accept dissent, the subordination of policy to partisanship, the you-are-either-with-us-or-against-us mentality, the equation of criticism with disloyalty, the contempt for public opinion.

I understand all these things. But there are two things about the current efforts that I do not understand.

The first is this: while their removal from the political scene may well be the sine qua non for meaningful change and sustainable reform and a necessary condition for things to get better -- why are we acting as though it would be a sufficient condition?

Retiring both from politics can only be the first step in refashioning Bangladeshi politics from the ground up. It does not appear to me that enough thought has gone into what might happen once they have passed from the scene.

Let us stipulate that Khaleda and Tarique and their coteries were the fundamental problem with the BNP and that reform of the BNP would require, at a minimum, that they and their cronies be retired from politics.

That leaves what, exactly? A reformed BNP under the leadership of Mannan Bhuiyan? Col. Oli Ahmed? Dr. Badruddoza Choudhury? How popular would such a party be? Would any of these leaders be able to keep the party in one piece?

Now let us look at the AL. In the event that Hasina is side-lined from politics, who leads the party then? It is clear that the foursome of Suranjit, Tofail, Amu and Razzak entertain such ambitions. The problem is that each one of them is himself compromised and neither together nor separately can any of them hope to be able to hold the party together and command the support of the party faithful.

Then what? Perhaps a new AL with neither Hasina nor the STAR (incidentally, that is only the most polite acronym for the four -- there are others) foursome at the helm -- but instead a compromise candidate. Would that work? Would he or she be able to keep the party together and win elections? Impossible to say.

But I see no evidence that anyone currently calling the shots has grappled with this issue with much rigour. The assumption seems to be that if Hasina and Khaleda are retired from politics that everything will improve dramatically. Well things might improve, but, then again, they might not.

In any event, it seems to me that the likeliest outcome of a political future without the two ladies would be that their parties would split up into factions. Lest we forget, it was to keep their parties together that both were drafted into politics in the first place in the 1980s.

The ultimate upshot of both AL and BNP breaking up into squabbling factions would be, after elections, a split parliament filled with small parties or independent candidates. Would this be better or worse than what we had before?

On the one hand, it might lead to a new culture of parliamentary functionality due to a superior calibre of representative, voting his or her conscience for the public good and not following the party line.

But, on the other, it might lead to policy-making paralysis. In a worst-case scenario, things could descend to such depths of chaos that it could lead people to start considering the need for a more authoritative chief executive or to look elsewhere for strong leadership. It seems to me that if we are not careful, we could be opening the door to all sorts of damaging repercussions.

The second issue I have with the "minus-two" plan, such as it is, is that it is not clear to me exactly what would constitute "removing" Khaleda and Hasina from politics. Right now, if current maneuvers are anything to go by, it seems that this means to convict them of wrong-doing in a court of law and to put them behind bars.

Well, at least for Hasina. Khaleda remains more or less at large. One can only conjecture that the reason is that with one son in custody and with charges pending against the other, that this is sufficient leverage to keep her quiet for the moment. But I would imagine that eventually the government would need to move against her, too.

But the immediate question is: what about Hasina? Let us say she is convicted of the crimes she is charged with and sentenced to prison. How long is it realistically possible to keep her incarcerated? Will she kept in jail until after the next elections. That would mean 18 months. But what would happen after that? Unless the plan is to keep her in jail for the rest of her life, she is going to have to be let out at some point eventually.

The 64 million dollar question is: what happens then?

Nor is this merely a question of how legitimate the charges against her are. Even if truly substantive charges are brought against her and the evidence against her is clear, it may not be sufficient to discredit her in the eyes of the public, a significant number of whom will continue to rally behind her come what may.

So, one way or another, dealing definitively with Hasina and Khaleda may well require more than merely locking them up. It might require coming to some kind of accommodation with them. It seems to me that with the consequences of any actions taken by this government so hard to predict, that every effort should be made to bring some certainty to the proceedings. And that means entering into some kind of settlement or plea bargain with the two ladies and not leaving matters to chance.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.