DHAKA (Reuters) -- After nine years in power and then six years in jail on charges of corruption, Bangladesh's former military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad is now being wooed by the political parties that ousted him from the presidency.

Ershad, 77, said last week he will join the ruling alliance headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, but the opposition, led by the Awami League of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, hopes it can still entice him into its fold.

In 1990, Ershad was removed from power when the two women joined hands for the only time in the history of the impoverished South Asian nation to lead a people's revolt to force him out.

But with the next general election due in January, and knife-edge hostility between Khaleda and Hasina, Ershad is poised to play the role of "queen-maker".

"I have decided to join the BNP-led alliance because it can satisfy conditions I have set to go with them," Ershad told reporters last week after a dinner meeting with Khaleda's son Tareque Rahman and Home Minister Lutfuzzaman Babar.

The opposition, however, has not given up hope and believes Ershad may swing before Khaleda ends her five-year term in October and hands power to a caretaker authority to supervise the January election.

"He is unpredictable and may change his mind at the last minute," said Awami general secretary Abdul Jalil.

There is plenty of old enmity between Ershad and the BNP.

Ershad, then army chief, seized power from a BNP government in a 1982 bloodless coup, and was once accused by Khaleda of having a role in the killing of her husband, general-turned-president Ziaur Rahman, in 1981.

Khaleda's BNP won the 1991 election after Ershad's ouster and promptly jailed the former general on 19 charges of corruption and misuse of power.

He served six years in jail over two charges, and is currently out on bail in three other cases. The other charges are still waiting to be heard.

Ershad's Jatiya party contested the election in 2001 with hopes that it might be in a pivotal position between the BNP and the Awami League.

But the BNP won a landslide victory in the 300-member assembly with more than 200 seats and the Jatiya could get only 14. The Awami League won 58.

Whoever Ershad joins, the active wooing of him by both the ruling party and the opposition has left many disenchanted.

"The revival of Ershad will only corrupt politics more," said A.K.M. Shahidullah, a political science professor at Dhaka University.

"Politics has already gone out of the hands of politicians, with the rich and black money holders dominating now. With Ershad back, corruption will further increase."

Another analyst, former general Syed Mohammad Ibrahim, said: "The eagerness to win Ershad by both the alliances exposes their bankruptcy in terms of morality and commitment to genuine welfare of the people."