Prof Riaz is right that elections alone cannot sustain democracy. The further point is that institutions cannot remain independent if parties refuse to accept limits on their own power. Bangladesh will break its political cycle when we agree that winning power does not confer ownership of the state.
We stand today at a critical juncture. The authoritarian state has collapsed, but the authoritarian mind endures. The struggle for democracy, therefore, is no longer against a regime -- it is against ourselves.
