Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus on Thursday, returned to Bangladesh to take charge of a caretaker government following a student-led protest that brought an end to Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Yunus arrived in Dhaka on a flight from Paris via Dubai just after 2 pm (0800 GMT) and might take the oath as the new leader of the country as early as Thursday evening to commence what the army chief has promised will be a “beautiful democratic process”.
The prospect of 84-year-old Yunus standing alongside military leaders was almost unimaginable a week ago when security forces fired deadly rounds at protesters who took to the streets demanding the resignation of Hasina.
LEADERSHIP recalls that the military sided against Hasina over the weekend, prompting her to seek refuge in neighboring India, while millions of Bangladeshis rejoiced at her downfall.
Subsequently, the military succumbed to student requests for Yunus, a Nobel laureate recognised for his groundbreaking microfinancing efforts in 2006, to lead an interim government.
“I’m looking forward to going back home, see what’s happening and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble we are in,” Yunus told reporters in Paris as he left for Dhaka.
The veteran academic had travelled abroad this year while on bail after being sentenced to six months in jail on a charge condemned as politically motivated, and of which a Dhaka court on Wednesday acquitted him.
Yunus was hit with more than 100 criminal cases and a smear campaign by a state-led Islamic agency that accused him of promoting homosexuality, with courts accused of rubber-stamping decisions by ousted Hasina’s government.
Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said he backed Yunus and hoped he would be sworn in to lead the interim government on Thursday evening.
“I am certain that he will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process,” Waker said.
Yunus said he wanted to hold elections “within a few” months.
Few other details about the planned government have been released, including the role of the military.
But Bangladeshis voiced hope as they joined a rally in Dhaka on Wednesday for the former opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP).
“I expect that a national government will be formed with everyone’s consent in a beautiful way. I expect that the country is run in a nice way, and the police force is reformed so that they can’t harass people,” Moynul Islam Pintu told AFP.
Hasina, 76, who had been in power since 2009, quit on Monday as hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Dhaka. Jubilant crowds later stormed and looted her palace.
Monday’s events were the culmination of more than a month of unrest, which began as protests against a plan for quotas in government jobs but morphed into an anti-Hasina movement.
Hasina, who was accused of rigging the January elections and widespread human rights abuses, deployed security forces to quash the protests.
At least 455 people were killed in the unrest, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials, and hospital doctors.
“The protests are a seismic moment in Bangladesh’s history,” said International Crisis Group analyst Thomas Kean.
“The country really had been at risk of becoming a one-party state, and through a peaceful street-based movement led by Gen Z students in their 20s, they’ve managed to force her from power.”
The military’s switching of allegiance was the decisive factor in her departure.
It has since acceded to a range of other demands from the student leaders.
The president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, a key demand of the students and the BNP.
The head of the police force, which protesters have blamed for leading Hasina’s crackdown, was sacked on Tuesday while the new chief, Mainul Islam, offered an apology on Wednesday for the conduct of officers and vowed a “fair and impartial investigation” into the killings of “students, common people, and the police”.
Ex-prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, 78, was also released from years of house arrest, while some political prisoners were freed.
The military has demoted some Generals seen as close to Hasina and sacked Ziaul Ahsan, a commander of the feared Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force.
Police said mobs had launched revenge attacks on officers and Hasina’s allies, and also freed more than 500 inmates from a prison.
Protesters broke into parliament and torched TV stations. Others smashed statues of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence hero.
Since Tuesday, however, streets in the capital have been largely peaceful.
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