Git - forcefully ask for credentials on every push?

Question

How do I make git ask for credentials (username+password) every time there's a push?

We have a shared host where a logal git repository is taking care of version-controlling a bunch of files. I want to push the repository to a remote location over http, and ask for the username+password every time (since this is a shared host, this ensures we track who was responsible for the last changes).

I have done:

git init
git remote add origin http://remote.host/the_git_repo

However, when I push, I get an HTTP 401 error and no username/password prompt:

[user@thehost ~]# git push -u origin master error: The requested URL returned error: 401 Unauthorized while accessing http://remote.host/the_git_repo/info/refs

fatal: HTTP request failed

The .git/config file contents:

[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = true
        bare = false
        logallrefupdates = true
        askpass = true
[remote "origin"]
        url = http://remote.host/the_git_repo
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

Notes:

• SSH login is not available for this remote repo
• I have read the documentation about the SSH_ASKPASS and GIT_ASKPASS environment variables, but it is not clear how to use them (export GIT_ASKPASS=1 does nothing)
• This is similar to this question, the difference is that the repository was just created and noone has input any credentials yet