Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is returning to Bangladesh to lead interim government

NEW DELHI, India — Bangladesh’s Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is set to return to Dhaka on Thursday to be sworn in as his country’s interim leader, after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India Monday following widespread protests against her government.

Rioters burned down police stations and attacked homes and temples of minority Hindus in the protests. “The whole edifice has collapsed,” said Jyoti Rahman, an Australia-based economist who writes on Bangladeshi politics and economy, referring to Hasina’s government.

The Bangladesh military’s swift appointment of Yunus was a demand of students who led the protests that triggered the former prime minister’s resignation. “Any government other than the one we recommended would not be accepted,” Reuters quoted one of the student leaders, Nahid Islam, as writing on Facebook.

The students “were very clear,” said Thomas Kean of the International Crisis Group. “They were not going to accept the army or an army-backed government.”

Those concerns are alive in Bangladesh, where the institution has led 29 interventions in a country that is five decades old, according to Chietigj Bajpaee, senior research fellow for South Asia at Chatham House in London. It was the army chief, Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman, who announced the former prime minister had resigned on Monday.

That resignation triggered “a seismic shift in politics in Bangladesh,” said Kean. Hasina, the world’s longest-serving female prime minister, had ruled Bangladesh for four back-to-back terms stretching over 15 years. The last elections were in January, which she won after the opposition boycotted polls.

Many Bangladeshis were proud of how Hasina transformed the country, building roads and railways, and developing a large garment export industry. But her party could not resolve high youth unemployment.

That is partly why her downfall began with students protesting against quotas for government jobs allocated to descendants of veterans of the 1971 war for Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan. Many students believed the ruling party was handing out those jobs to cronies. “You basically have this perfect storm of sorts,” said Bajpaee.

Students who protested over the job quotas were attacked by Hasina’s party loyalists. Paramilitary forces and police joined the fray, triggering violent clashes that killed more than 300 people.

And Hasina, 76, was increasingly seen as corrupt, intolerant of criticism and hostile to rivals.

That included Yunus, who is perhaps Bangladesh’s most prominent citizen.

Yunus calls for calm

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering work on microlending to the impoverished. But in June, he was indicted in Bangladesh by a special court in an embezzlement case of over $2 million. Yunus denied the charges and says the case was politically motivated by the former prime minister, who saw him as a potential rival.

He was released on bail and had traveled to Paris for the Olympic Games. From there, he called on Bangladeshis to “make the best use of our new victory.”

"I fervently appeal to everybody to stay calm. Please refrain from all kinds of violence,” he said in a statement on Wednesday via his nonprofit, the Yunus Center. “This is our beautiful country with lots of exciting possibilities. We must protect and make it a wonderful country for us and for our future generations.”

Yunus’ temporary leadership could herald more stability, said Kean. “He’s a nonpartisan figure. That is what Bangladesh needs at the moment, to drive forward this process.”

In Dhaka, many residents appeared happy with the choice.

“In Bangladesh if you have to define a good person, someone we can trust and move forward, someone who we can call reliable — the first name that will come up, it will be Dr. Muhammad Yunus,” said Fakruddin Abu Saeed, a 27-year-old consultant to nonprofits. “We are hoping that Dr. Muhammad Yunus will help Bangladesh move forward from the challenge it is facing.”

Grandmother and housewife Mina Sultana Neelu echoed that praise and hope: “Dr. Yunus is our proud son,” she said. “If our country can move forward holding his hand, then I think our country will transform into something beautiful.”

The abrupt end to Sheikh Hasina’s rule appeared unexpected. It began unraveling after Bangladesh’s military chief refused to deploy his forces on Monday to quell tens of thousands of people marching onto Hasina’s residence in the capital, after clashes on Sunday killed more than 90 people.

As the demonstrators neared, with no forces to prevent them, Hasina flew to neighboring India. “At very short notice, she requested approval to come for the moment to India,” said that country's foreign minister S. Jaishankar. “We simultaneously received a request for flight clearance from Bangladesh authorities.”

India has had a long and close relationshipwith Hasina, but there are concerns that a prolonged stay could cause tensions with any new government in Bangladesh.

Protests continued after Sheikh Hasina's departure

The army chief announced her departure in a press conference and announced an interim government would be formed. Even as he spoke, crowds rushed into the prime minister’s residence, some looting items like fish and Hasina’s clothes.

In the hours that followed, rioters also attacked police stations, looting and torching them. “The police was the face of the regime,” said Rahman, the economist. Rioters also burned down dozens of Hindu homes, including a prominent musician’s. More than a dozen temples were set alight, Reuters reported. It was unclear what motivated these attacks.

Protesters also vandalized and tore down a statue of Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was Sheikh Hasina’s own father. Rioters torched a museum honoring his memory. There were multiple jailbreaks.

By Tuesday, a tense calm prevailed.

Prominent military and civilian officials seen as loyal to Hasina’s party resigned or were expelled. One major general was detained aboard an aircraft while trying to leave. Human Rights Watch reported that an advocacy group for families of victims of enforced disappearances demonstrated outside Bangladesh’s military intelligence agency, which led to the release of at least two men who had been held for eight years.

Hasina’s archrival, Khaleda Zia, who leads the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was freed after years of house arrest. Students and local residents guarded police stations and Hindu temples to prevent more attacks. They also directed traffic.

The president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, ordered the dissolution of parliament, paving the way for that interim government.

Challenges ahead

Already, there are signs of brewing challenges. “There's a standoff, to put it bluntly,” said Rahman.

Typically in Bangladesh, an interim government rules for 90 days, and its job is to pave the way for elections. With Hasina’s party crushed for now, her chief rivals, the BNP, are eager for elections that they would almost certainly win.

But elections need security, and rebuilding the police could take years, even though a new police chief has already been appointed, said Rahman. Bangladesh police announced an indefinite nationwide strike on Tuesday, fearing for their safety. The students are also demanding deep-seated reforms to prevent future governments from abusing the powers amassed during Hasina’s rule, said Kean.

Without reforms, Kean explained, the incoming government would have “no checks and balances. It would control the judiciary, security forces.” It would “be able to use those to hold on to power and suppress opposition.”

So with the arrival of Muhammad Yunus, there’s a brewing question of “what the interim government’s role will be,” said Kean. “Is it just to organize elections? Or is it to undertake some political reforms, to build consensus with the army and political parties, civil society and students on what kind of political system Bangladesh will have in the future.”

Tanbirul Miraj Ripon and Fabeha Monir contributed to this report from Dhaka, Bangladesh.