The Chief Election Commissioner's announcement of the election schedule is yet another milestone crossed for Bangladesh, on the road it is traversing to a renewed embrace of democracy. In case you didn't know, this is not very common in today's world, and so no one should expect anything from here on in to be easy, or straightforward. It is well-documented of course, that in the grand sweep of history, we live in an era of 'democratic backsliding'.

Today if you look around, and what you'll see more likely are countries with governance failures moving away entirely, from civilian rule. Who would fail to take note of what Ibrahim Traore is doing over in Burkina Faso, that is already starting to catch on in his neighbourhood. Meanwhile the most odious perhaps, even more than some repressive societies, still try to choreograph some performative adoption of democracy, in order to keep engaging with Western interlocutors.

Over the years, this portrayal of democracy as an essentially Western project, one from the other almost inextricable, has been its greatest setback in the Global South. We regard it almost instinctively with suspicion, we smell shenanigans. There is something we cannot trust about them. Even our fellow citizens who advocate in favour of democratic values or principles - we start viewing them as fifth-columnists. And thus we play into the hands of the autocrats in our midst.

In the months and years ahead, in which we commit to establish a society based on democratic principles, we can expect literally loads of that. In fact it has been underlying everything that has happened in Bangladesh for the last 18 months. We all know of course, how it forms the central thesis of why and how it all went so wrong for them (let's name them AL and the Indian establishment) on the 5th of August?

It's very easy for them to cast these aspersions of course - I've already gone into the structural ingredients that are in place, that makes it all too easy for them and so that is what they will do. As individuals, they are not up to putting in the really hard work, that includes serious introspection on where it's all gone off the rails for them, such that from the pinnacle of power, they are now properly wiped out of existence. We have to go looking for them, and are largely responsible for whatever relevance they still retain.

Over these last 18 months, the cheapest, most commonly heard forecast or prediction or projection, even wager, has been that the "election won't happen". So many people, so many really, have come up and just floated it into a conversation, maybe an evening, or on a weekend morning. Anytime, anywhere and everywhere. Half of these people normally, really have no interest in knowing or even thinking about something like this. But we've all seen them, we've heard them, we've let them blabber on about something they know nothing about. With religious zeal, spreading the word as far as they can - that the election won't happen. It is just so easy.

At best, and I mean really the very best, this is just a gut feeling on their part - patched together during meetings with some seniors, maybe their masters, who still (and will always) retain the right to tell them off. Or they hear it from their senior leaders, who must tell them that - otherwise they need to take responsibility, yet they are in no position to do that. They are tragically fixated upon Dr Yunus as the villain of the piece that forced them to abandon all posts and flee, in the space of just a day. In doing so they are completely closed off to the political blunders that had piled up, as well as the really bread-and-butter causes of their downfall - inflation, job losses, static wages, and what not. The last two years they were unable to even generate any returns for their loyal base, something that may well have triggered the Muktijuddha Manch's move to bring back quotas.

This isn't to say the announcement of the schedule means the entire pathway leading to the election is clear. This will never be the case here - democracy will be inevitably bumpy, more bumpy than in most other countries. In fact by their own admission, they will devote themselves to disrupting the process. We may see to what extent they can. That would represent an interesting test of their strength. But they are dwindling, and I cannot see ordinary people putting their own lives on hold for a classically clientelist party like AL.

For the moment, and indeed the foreseeable future, I see their efforts aimed only at pulling Bangladesh down, as it embarks on the reforms discussed in the last 16 months. Not all of them. The entire reform bill is surely far too ambitious to be pulled off in its entirety. But even half those changes, if implemented, would leave AL in an untenable situation, completely drained of any relevance. The very same election that they only wish to disrupt with all their negative energy - we must make sure they get nowhere near it.

And anyone who still continues to cast doubt on the election, over our election, we must ask them, we must probe them, and we must force them to provide specific reasons for their fears. One of the most remarkable features about this whole conversation that has gone on over 15-16 months, is the remarkably little meat that has been added on to the bones of the prediction. More or less anyone who has dared to explore it, has gone no further than "law and order situation, crime is up". But can that ever be a reason for elections not happening? Has anyone ever heard of an election being scrapped due to a spike in crime rates? If anything, that would be even more cause to have an election.

So let's try to be more discerning about things we see or hear, and more judicious in how much store to put by them, as the election keeps approaching. You'd be amazed at what you may find out, about the information ecosystem you live in. The one that has convinced you an internationally celebrated Nobel laureate's word has no value, absolutely no value, not just to you (that can go without saying) - but to the rest of the world even. Or else how can your unfounded doubt win the day, against the sheer number of times he has said, in the clearest terms: "The election will be held in February."

Nevermind the number of times members of his Advisory Council have then repeated it, and the Press team has amplified it. None of it has been good enough for usually rational, pragmatic people. By now, we should realise that for some of these people, nothing will ever be good enough. We know them far better now of course. We just have to be better at recognising them, and doing that early. When it comes down to it, time is all we have to lose.