The first of these choices was to administer and hold a free and fair election in the quickest possible time. This would have been well within the army's capability. The Bangladesh armed forces have considerable experience administering elections, and with its assistance there is no reason why an acceptable voter list could not have been put together in a relatively short period of time. After that it would simply have been a matter of ensuring that the returning officers and EC officials were sufficiently impartial and that hooligans and party cadres did not hinder people from voting their consciences.

However, this path was not chosen. It is crucial to isolate who exactly made this choice. The choice was made by the caretaker government and the army. To what extent each of these entities was responsible for the choice, we can only speculate. Crucially, this choice was backed by influential voices in civil society, not least of all this newspaper.

No one asked the public what they wanted, but to the extent that public opinion could be gauged, it is perhaps fair to say that the decision not to go for quick elections was not unpopular. However, it cannot be argued that the choice was universally popular, either.

Had free and fair elections been held, what would have happened?

If the BNP had won then certainly nothing would have changed and the country would have continued down the precipitous and perilous path of the last five years. No need to elaborate this point.

What if the AL had won, as would have been more likely: would this have changed anything? Well, it would have changed plenty. The massive and unprecedented abuses of power of the past 4-party alliance government, especially those of Tarique Rahman and his coterie, would have come to an end.

In many ways, the immediate past elected government was the worst we have seen in our history, and to the extent that it would have most likely been unceremoniously tossed out of office pursuant to free and fair elections, the state of the nation would almost certainly have improved.

However, much would have been left unfixed. In the first place, as Hasina is on record as stating, we would not have seen corrupt BNP leaders such as Tarique and Falu behind bars under an AL government. No elected government would have been able to carry out the current anti-corruption and anti-crime drive.

Then, of course, there is no guarantee that an incoming AL government would not have been as corrupt and abusive as the government it would have replaced. Indeed, if the auctioning of nomination papers prior to the election is any indication, corruption would certainly have continued as before.

And, of course, at a very basic level, we would have returned to the culture of sycophancy and intolerance of dissent and politicisation of the administration and rule by fiat that have been regrettably constant features of the political landscape these past thirty-five years.

Would the AL have passed a freedom of information act or separated the executive from the judiciary or instituted any of the other hundred and one reforms necessary to make the country's politics more functional? Doubtful.

And, of course, parliament would have continued to be dysfunctional and hartals and oborodhs would have continued to be the order of the day.

One can even make the argument that people would not have been able to vote their consciences even in the absence of muscle because of the political parties selling their nomination papers to the highest bidder and the dysfunctional feudal political culture prevailing in the country.

I am not sure that I buy this argument. If you don't like a party's candidate then you are free not to vote for him or her and in fact free to run your own candidate.

This wasn't true in the past, where you would face violence and intimidation for doing so (e.g. look at the LDP experience). But the army could certainly have ensured that party goons be reined in and could easily have created a secure environment for the voters to vote for whomever they wished.

At that point, if you still can't win or you still don't like the person who gets voted to power, too bad. That's the people's choice.

But, be that as it may, we didn't go down that route. The powers that be and other mandarins of society, in their infinite wisdom, made the determination that the system was fundamentally broken and needed to be fixed from the ground up.

OK. I would argue that while this wasn't necessarily an indisputable conclusion, it was a defensible proposition. But make no mistake about it. This was not a war of necessity, it was a war of choice.

So the decision was made. We need to rebuild from the ground up. What would this entail? First, it would entail longer than 90 days. No problem. The time period fixed is a year and a half from now. OK. As best as I can tell, people are happy enough with this option.

Next, it would require much reform in the system and institutions within these two years. Again, OK. Separation of the judiciary from the executive, administrative reform, electoral law reform, right to information act -- much advancement has been made on these and other crucial issues, and by the end of next year we could well have in place the bulk of the reforms necessary to make our democracy functional.

Next, and most crucially, it would require that either new parties be formed to come to power in the upcoming elections or that the existing parties reform themselves fundamentally into forces for the public good.

I would argue that a new party was so central to the success of this drive for reform that those who were supportive of the January 11 take-over had a duty to ensure that Prof. Yunus's proposed party got off the ground.

In the end, it turned into an embarrassing comedy of errors with Prof. Yunus pointing the finger at those he said had encouraged him to stand but had let him down in the end and those who in the end declined to join up with him whispering that he was politically clueless.

So now we are back to the scenario of forcing the existing parties to reform themselves so that at the end of the day they can provide good governance if they are elected to power or act as a responsible opposition if they are not.

Once again, I would argue that it is incumbent to see that these efforts ultimately bear fruit. If this is the path that has been chosen, then those who chose it, and not just the army, but all who acquiesced in the changing of the guard on January 11, have a duty to ensure that the mission is seen through to the end.

This is no time for half measures and it is no time to lose one's nerve. Nor is it a time to comfort oneself with the thought that we didn't have a choice in the matter. We did. This is what we chose, or, to be more specific, what some people chose. If it ends in tears, they will have no one to blame but themselves.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.