Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to guide Bangladesh interim authorities | Politics Information

The microfinance pioneer has been tapped to guide an interim authorities after the ouster of PM Sheikh Hasina.

Bangladesh’s Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will head the nation’s interim authorities after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stepped down and fled the nation amid a mass rebellion in opposition to her rule led largely by college students.

The announcement early on Wednesday got here from Joynal Abedin, the press secretary of President Mohammed Shahabuddin.

Abedin additionally mentioned the opposite members of the Yunus-led authorities can be determined quickly after dialogue with political events and different stakeholders.

The leaders of the scholar protests, the chiefs of the nation’s three divisions of the navy, and civil society members, in addition to some enterprise leaders, held a gathering with the president for greater than 5 hours late on Tuesday to determine on the top of the interim administration.

The scholars had earlier proposed Yunus and mentioned the 83-year-old microfinance pioneer had agreed. He’s anticipated to return to the nation from Paris quickly, native media reported.

Following the choice, pupil leaders left the president’s official home shortly after midnight, happy and welcoming the choice.

Nahid Islam, a pacesetter of the scholar group, known as the talks “fruitful” and mentioned Shahabuddin had agreed that the interim authorities “can be shaped throughout the shortest time” attainable.

Shahabuddin additionally sacked the nationwide police chief within the wake of lethal protests that sparked Hasina’s departure and named a alternative, his workplace mentioned.

Longtime Hasina critic

Yunus is a well known critic and political opponent of Hasina. He known as her resignation the nation’s “second liberation day”. She had as soon as known as him a “bloodsucker”.

An economist and banker by career, Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering the usage of microcredit to assist impoverished individuals, significantly girls.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee credited Yunus and his Grameen Financial institution “for his or her efforts to create financial and social growth from under”.

Yunus based Grameen Financial institution in 1983 to supply small loans to entrepreneurs who wouldn’t usually qualify to obtain them. The financial institution’s success in lifting individuals out of poverty led to comparable microfinancing efforts in different nations.

He bumped into hassle with Hasina in 2008, when her administration launched a sequence of investigations into him. He had introduced he would kind a political celebration in 2007 when the nation was run by a military-backed authorities, however didn’t comply with by.

In the course of the investigations, Hasina accused Yunus of utilizing pressure and different means to get well loans from poor rural girls as the top of Grameen Financial institution. Yunus denied the allegations.

He was placed on trial in 2013 on fees of receiving cash with out authorities permission, together with his Nobel Prize and royalties from a e-book. He later confronted extra fees involving different corporations he created, together with Grameen Telecom, which is a part of the nation’s largest cell phone firm, Grameenphone, a subsidiary of Norwegian telecom large Telenor.

In 2023, some former Grameen Telecom staff filed a case in opposition to Yunus accusing him of siphoning off their job advantages. He denied the accusations.

Earlier this 12 months, a particular choose’s courtroom in Bangladesh indicted Yunus and 13 others on fees over the $2m embezzlement case. Yunus pleaded not responsible and is out on bail for now.

Yunus’s supporters say he has been focused due to his frosty relations with Hasina.