The sad reality of Bangladeshi politics today is that the answer to that question won't be debated that much. The recently concluded BBC survey showed that a startling 83% of the population think that the politicians do not represent their views.

Naturally, the void has to be filled, and in response, civil society, otherwise known as the "sushil samaj" in Bangla, has taken the first organized step in a long time to start an organized movement/dialog to come up with a list of real candidates from the grassroots.

In my opinion, they already pondered on this far too long. But the hardest part of breaking this inertia has become possible finally. In today's Bangladesh, politics has been equivalent to mud, greed, and power. The civil society's involvement, hopefully, will bring it back up a notch to the level where it should be -- at the level of talking policies and of talking about the real people.

The role of this current movement is to campaign to force the parties to make a conscious decision on picking the best candidate for the job rather than picking a candidate by the strength of his muscle and wallet power.

This is a fantastic issue to rally on for the people. But herein lies the biggest challenge for this movement -- how to talk to our people in a language they understand and inspire them to get involved in this process. The success of this movement will lie on how the general population responds and gets involved. The civil society leaders need to make them believe that each and every one of us can make a difference in the system.

Over the past 15 years of democracy, more than the politicians' incompetence, what troubled me is the indifference among the countrymen about the state of the nation. There is a proverbial Bangla phrase: "shob jayej" which means anything goes. That's the saying we just became too used to hearing. Nothing moved us to shame, nothing outraged us anymore to the level of taking a stand that enough is enough. The mentality became such that everything was fine as long as you let one live in peace. Sooner or later, the surroundings around us will come and catch us off guard, if not already. At that time we will not have any one to blame if we didn't do our bit to sufficiently take a stand in changing the status quo.

This phenomenon of not getting engaged in issues that affects one's self is not uncommon for the rest of the world. People just don't hold the politicians accountable for any of their misfortune and vote for the same candidates over and over again.

In the US, the majority don't think the political decisions at the Congress affect their day to day life. But at least real issues are debated there -- at least most of the time. Here in Bangladesh, however, we don't have the "luxury" of seeing policy debates in parliament. Although, we see the effect of political inertia hit us every single day in our day to day lives, we have just taken it as a fact of life that this is to be our fate.

But perhaps things are changing? For example, the lack of foresight and initiative and political corruption is responsible for our power sector to be in a sorry state. The authorities had to take police protection to save themselves from the wrath of the affected farmers. Perhaps in a sign of things to come, finally at least some of us are realizing that enough is enough. I say let's not wait till our backs hit the wall. Let's start now.

So where do we start? Does this initiative of electing good candidates solve all our problems? Of course not! But in a rudderless ship named Bangladesh, suddenly we have found a group of good people coming together for a cause that can be the first step towards proper and stable political culture that is of utmost need.

The debate on BBC showed where our political dialogs could be -- beyond rhetoric and powered with more substance. Unfortunately in that debate, minister Najmul Huda was no match against the eloquent SOAS-educated Saber Hossain Chowdhury. But the frequent disparaging laughter and claps from the politically aware audience showed that a good section of Bangladesh, the youth, has gained the maturity to cut through the rhetoric and appreciate real substance when they see it.

At the end of the debate, Saber said that if the political parties do not listen to the people, then they will slowly get extinct like the dinosaurs. For me, this realization from a Bangladeshi politician was revelation enough to make me believe that if we can start the movement to elect good candidates who truly listen to the people, not only the parties themselves will benefit, it will change the face of Bangladesh.

Make no mistake, if there was ever a Chinese new year called "year to make it happen," this year would be the one for Bangladesh. This election will decide which direction we go in the coming years. So why not do our bit in this?

Let's write, let's participate in the discussions and help the organizers come up with the list of candidates who genuinely portray the wishes of the constituency from both the parties. The best of us have spoken and taken a stand, now it is time for the rest of us to engage and make a difference. I promise I will do my part. Will you?

Asif Saleh is the executive director of human rights organization Drishtipat.