Bangladesh politics has reached a comical stage, with the few surviving sycophants trying to prove "who is the most loyal to the chief" in the hope that sometime soon they will emerge as the key party functionaries with the ouster of others. The loyalist leaders are also hoping that the numerous party crawlers who had used politics as their tool for personal gains and privileges will somehow rise and chase the reformers away.

One such loyalist, who usually excels in road shows like forcing innocent commuters to dismount from their rickshaws to comply with hartals, and even attempting to strip male office goers off their shirts, is Motia Chowdhury.

Had there been no emergency in the country, she would have exhibited some other obnoxious public theatrics to exhibit her loyalty. Sycophancy like hers has prevented our leadership from establishing democracy and accountability, despite the promises.

Hasina may have thousands and thousands of loyalists ready to take to the streets, as they have for the last 25 years, but a government and the laws of a country must protect, at all times, the political minority, or the reformists, or any individual spokesperson, from the thuggery of a party majority.

Reforms must mean the development of institutions, like the courts, the media, and the police, which will protect critics, the opposition, or those who question the political elite.

Reforms must also mean that no group can impose hartals or engage in picketing or blockades, unless the people willingly choose to observe such programs. This is the test of a true democratic government -- the protection of the political minority. Democracy is not the rule of the majority, or by the majority, but a structure that will shield the "minority of all minorities" -- the individual citizen.

However, those who still favour the supremacy of the discredited political leadership clearly want the return, not the reform, of the old political ways. They want the state institutions to remain divided, but between the two families.

By supporting Hasina or Khaleda, or by getting them together, and by challenging the reform task, they fancy the permanent postponement of change within the parties and in the country. With political restructuring, dynastic politics is bound to end. It will crumble quickly if political reforms are rushed, hence the hard resistance from the loyalist pack and their ill will towards those who demand reforms.

However, the reformers in the parties and the country seem hesitant with their proposals, which is good news for the sycophants. The opponents of reform, in defence, cite various democratic procedures that they must follow within their parties before any reform, but their noble intentions are mere speech, and never beyond it, as we have experienced. They unconvincingly claim that they conduct their activities by following organisational rules and procedures, and democratic principles.

Ideally, both the organisations should start from scratch, and begin to operate only after they complete organisational reforms, and after their formal registration with the EC. Any political party wishing to contest polls, at any level, must abide by certain rules, which the EC must make compulsory. The EC is not just a body for preparing a voter list for power-mongers, but is required to supervise and monitor the activities of registered political organisations.

Reforms like strict financial accountability of party income and expenditure, and the practice of using the ballot box for policy issues and in choosing party leaders are the most important. The rest, like age limit, collective leadership, two or more terms, two posts, or one, are unimportant, and are the private issues of the individual parties.

Collective leadership, as proposed by some reformers, is also a form of a dictatorial pact, a syndicate, and a political cartel. Power is used best when it is dispersed. It is totalitarian when given to an authority, to one person, or to a group of persons. The very purpose of reform is the dismantling of political authority, not its renaming or redesigning.

Bangladeshis have always wrongly defined politics (rajniti) as the rule of rajas and aristocrats. This is a distorted definition of politics. Politics is not a rule of the elite but a condition where principles stay supreme -- nitir raja-- to quote a wise TV talk-show participant.

Laws, if correctly formulated, will be decisive and final, not the leaders, parties, dynasties, or people's majority. None of these will rule the people, neither will the majority. We will have no rulers, but a rule of law and a rule by law.

A liberal constitution that upholds the rights of the minority and does not succumb to the will of the majority, or its tyranny, can be the single most important public accord in a free society holding diverse views and beliefs but coexisting harmoniously, securely, freely, and without obedience or servility to any group, person, or majority.

Motia Chowdhury quotes the Wall Street Journal, which says that if Hasina and Khaleda are taken out of politics Bangladesh will risk the rise of religious terrorism. What Mrs. Chowdhury is not saying is that it was because of the undemocratic, haughty, and shady politics of the two women that violence has become a national threat and an international concern.

I strongly feel that if dynastic dominance in politics continues, religious and social violence will become a certainty. Only a liberalised economy, reformed politics, and firm rule of law can avert such a catastrophe.

Hasina's ways were wrong and erroneous, a mob rule, and the way out, or in, for her and her loyalists is in accepting the demand for reforms without accusing party colleagues of conspiracy. That will merely create unwanted political anxiety.

Motia is cunningly doing politics by waiting in front of Sudha Sadhan, but if she really wants to see her netri she should go to government officers who can permit her to do so. Unlike the loyalists of the past, the thousands of supporters and stalwarts of Hasina or Khaleda, and their pampered organisers, are the shameless beneficiaries of power and politics. They are, today, on the run, or in prisons, as the situation has unexpectedly turned sour for them.

The good and the dedicated have no energy or reason to work for a party head who not only failed them but probably also deceived them. Reformers should not pause nor panic, but speed up their efforts without fearing acts of vengeance or settling of scores, which are least likely if reforms, both economic and political, are hurried, kept honest, liberal, and democratic.

Nizam Ahmad is Director, Liberal Bangla, UK.