DHAKA (AFP) – Bangladesh’s Nobel-winning microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus has been tapped to lead an interim government after mass protests forced longtime prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee, the presidency announced early Wednesday.
The appointment came quickly after student leaders called on the 84-year-old Yunus – credited with lifting millions out of poverty in the South Asian country – to lead, and he said he was ready to do so.
The decision “to form an interim government with… Yunus as its chief” was taken at a meeting of President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders and the heads of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, Shahabuddin’s press office said.
“The president has asked the people to help ride out the crisis. Quick formation of an interim government is necessary to overcome the crisis,” it said in a statement, adding that the national police chief had been sacked.
Yunus will have the title of chief advisor, according to SAD leader Nahid Islam.
Shahabuddin agreed that the interim government “will be formed within the shortest time” possible, Islam told reporters.
Hasina, 76, had been in power since 2009 but was accused of rigging elections in January and then watched millions of people take to the streets over the past month demanding her resignation.
Hundreds of people were killed as security forces sought to quell the unrest but the protests grew and Hasina finally fled Monday aboard a helicopter after the military turned against her.
Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said it was “time to stop the violence”.
The president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, a key demand of the student leaders and the major opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP), which has demanded elections within three months.
“If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, then I will take it,” Yunus told AFP in a statement on Tuesday, also calling for free elections.
“In Dr. Yunus, we trust,” Asif Mahmud, a key leader of SAD, wrote on Facebook.
The military on Tuesday reshuffled several generals, demoting some seen as close to Hasina, and sacking Ziaul Ahsan, a commander of the feared Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force.
Ex-prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, 78, was also released from years of house arrest, a presidential statement and her party said.
Streets in the capital were largely peaceful Tuesday — with shops opening and international flights resuming at Dhaka airport — but government offices remained mostly closed.
Millions of Bangladeshis flooded the streets to celebrate after Hasina’s departure – and jubilant crowds also stormed and looted her official residence.
“We have been freed from a dictatorship”, said Sazid Ahnaf, 21, comparing the events to the independence war that split the nation from Pakistan more than five decades ago.
