DHAKA (Bangladesh) - BANGLADESHIS head to the polls on Monday for the first time in seven years but the two top candidates are former prime ministers charged with corruption and many voters say they fear the election won't bring the reform this impoverished country desperately needs.

The election - the first since 2001 - is seen as crucial to restoring democracy in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which has a history of military rule and political unrest.

Vying for the top post of prime minister are Ms Khaleda Zia and Ms Sheikh Hasina - archrivals who have traded power back and forth for 15 years in successive governments marked by corruption, mismanagement, and paralysing protests.

Ms Zia was first elected prime minister in 1991, Ms Hasina in 1996, and Ms Zia again in 2001. During the 15 years of swapped rule, a well-worn pattern emerged: one party wins the election, and the other spends the term leading strikes and protests to make the country ungovernable.

Last year, both were jailed on corruption charges - which they dismissed as politically motivated - but they were freed on bail and reassumed positions as the heads of their respective parties, the two largest in the country.

'They are the same old stuff,' said Mr Farzan Hasan, a university student in Dhaka. 'They have failed in the past. I don't trust them. They fight for power. They don't care about our education and jobs.'

Roughly 86 per cent of Bangladesh's 150 million people live on less than $2 (S$2.90) a day. Illiteracy, malnutrition, chronic floods, corruption, high unemployment, and rising prices are just some of the problems the new government will face the day it takes power.

But the outcome of the election is far from clear. No reliable polls have been conducted, and some fear instability will follow the vote.

'There is lot of apprehension whether the losers will accept the result,' said , said Mr Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah, chairman of the National Election Observation Council, an independent watchdog. 'We hope the political parties, no matter who wins, cooperate with the government to achieve a peaceful transition of power.'

Bangladesh's last attempt at elections in January 2007 failed following weeks of deadly rioting between supporters of Ms Hasina's Awami League party and Ms Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party about electoral reform.

Power was handed over power to an interim government backed by the country's influential military and a state of emergency was imposed. The state of emergency was only lifted earlier this month.

There's also the possibility that people will vote 'No' if they don't like any candidate, the first time a 'No' option has been printed on the ballot. If there are a majority of 'no' votes, the election will be canceled and rescheduled.

'It's my vote,' said Ms Saleha Khatoon, a housewife in Dhaka.

'I'll use it as a weapon to chose the right person and reject the wrong one.'

Some blame Bangladesh's problems not on the two rivals, but on the caretaker government, which has been run by former central bank chief Fakhruddin Ahmed and a team of technocrats backed by senior military leaders.

'The interim government has done no better than the political governments,' said Mr Rafiqul Islam, a Dhaka shopkeeper. 'Prices have gone up so much, it's beyond our reach. At least politicians come talk to us, even if they are corrupt.'

Ms Zia and Ms Hasina's return represents a dramatic chapter in their intertwined careers, but analysts say it comes as no surprise. They both hail from separate political dynasties that have dominated the country since Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Ms Hasina's father was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, independent Bangladesh's first prime minister, assassinated along with most of his family by army officers in 1975.

Ms Zia's husband, General Ziaur Rahman, became prime minister, a post he held until 1981, when he too was assassinated by soldiers. Ms Zia then took over his party.

Experts say no recent political figure has had the money or the stature to emerge as a potential rival.

'There are some other national figures, but they do not devote enough time and energy to gain people's support,' said Prof Asif Nazrul, a political analyst and law professor at Dhaka University.

Prof Nazrul said the current government's crackdown against Ms Zia and Ns Hasina, which saw dozens of their family members and supporters jailed on corruption charges, may have inadvertently helped the former prime ministers.

'They attacked the two ladies in an imprudent way and to an excessive extent,' he said. 'This rejuvenated the popularity of the two ladies.'

When Ms Hasina visited the United States last April, the interim government tried to keep her from returning by asking international airlines not to let her board and ordering airports to refuse her plane. The government backed down after days of criticism, but arrested her in July on corruption charges. She was released in June.

The government also tried to arrange an exile for Ms Zia in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Singapore, but those countries reportedly refused to host her.

She was arrested last September on corruption charges but released a year later after the High Court granted her bail citing legal loopholes. -- AP