The refusal of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, to accept that her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was roundly defeated in Monday’s general election asserting instead that the vote was rigged is not only unwise but extremely dangerous. International poll monitors say the victory of Khaleda’s bitter rival Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League was entirely credible. The vote ended two year’s of rule by a military caretaker government that included a ban on political meetings and a drive against endemic corruption. This led to the arrest of several hundred politicians from both the main parties. So far only one former government minister has been found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Khaleda’s elder son Tarique Rahman fled the country when investigators moved against him. The caretaker government also worked hard to sort out inaccurate electoral rolls by issuing new identity cards, as a way of cutting down voting fraud that has characterized elections in the past 20 years. At one point Khaleda was saying that her BNP would be boycotting Monday’s poll because it claimed the electoral commission was biased against it. That she eventually decided to take part seemed at the time a welcome return to the political process. Had the BNP not contested the election, there would have been a continuation of the political instability that has long bedeviled the country, with Khaleda and her followers claiming that Hasina’s Awami League did not enjoy a genuine electoral mandate.

Unfortunately, disputing the election outcome instead is hardly any better. It threatens to continue the political polarization that is driven almost entirely by the deep-seated enmity between these two powerful women. Thoughtful Bangladeshis would on balance rather be rid of both of them and their destructive rivalry. However, such is the political heritage of each party — Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was Bangladesh’s founder-president assassinated in a 1976 military coup and succeeded by Khaleda’s husband Gen. Ziaur Rahman, who was in his turn assassinated in 1981 — that it is hard to see how a much-needed independent third force could yet arise in Bangladeshi politics.

Hasina’s offer to include BNP politicians as ministers in her new government could very well be mere grandstanding, with the Awami League leader calculating that her rival would not countenance such cooperation. Yet cooperation is precisely what is required as Bangladesh wrestles with a host of economic and social troubles. Hasina promised to lower soaring food prices and restore crumbling infrastructure, in particular electricity. With international donors less willing and the country’s 158 million population still growing fast, it is hard to see how the new government can deliver on its promises. Khaleda may be hoping that early voter disappointment will lead to public unrest that will drive Hasina from power and force fresh elections that she will win this time. This is, however, no way to participate in a democracy. It is high time Bangladesh’s politicians stopped grappling for power and instead grappled with their country’s problems.