Professor Yunus's public statement reversing his decision to join politics raises more questions than it answers. Is it all because his original moral backers had backed out that he ultimately backed off from a well-articulated determined choice? Even if it is so, who are those backers? If news reports are any guide, the professor floated a meant-for-all questionnaire seeking public opinion on his decision and the response was overwhelmingly positive. And there has not been another such questionnaire since that might convince him not to be convinced of the unequivocal moral support for his dreamt-of unaccustomed role. Surely he is not a person to be taken in by the publicity-hungry intellectual sycophants who have been in the media limelight for more than their tenure of pretensions. Could he then be understood to mean those that are commonly believed to be the driving force behind the formation of the interim government, or more curious still, those that some theorists fancy being the progenitor of the driving force?

Whatever, for the time being at least the potential of a one-man band to deliver remains beyond tapping, lending credence to the common notion that politics in Bangladesh is a pursuit unbecoming of those having an unblemished reputation. But does this mean as well that the clean-up campaign, which the interim government derives its moral authority from, is destined to fall through? Or, worse still, are we to buy the theory that the campaign is a prelude to a new round of power politics?

Meanwhile electricity supply and commodity price situations-the two thorniest issues that saw to the disgraceful exit of the BNP-led alliance from power-seem to remain beyond the government's power to ameliorate, leading to the people's enthusiasm for reform gradually sipping away. The psychic repercussions could well mean a return to the 'better the devil you know' syndrome, in which case even if general elections are held within the stipulated time frame and power is handed over to elected representatives the interim government will have lost much of its leverage to have Joe Public bear out all that it did in the name of reform.

By its own admission, the government has already made a tactical error-but it remains to be seen whether it is an error of judgment in adopting the policy of alienating the highest echelons of the two major political parties from mainstream politics or the error is the about-turn the government did over its policy. What is however beginning to become transparent is true reform and abiding by the dictates of donor nations cannot be complementary.

Put in a historical perspective, the coming to power of the interim government will always be regarded as a golden opportunity for Bangladesh to write a new chapter for itself-a chapter that relates how a nation extricates itself from the dungeon of corruption and deprivation raising its head in dignity-but then it is the future course of action that alone will determine whether that chapter will be written at all.