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The presidency in Bangladesh announced today, Wednesday, that Mohammed Younis Nobel Peace Prize laureate to head transitional government, after parliament dissolved and prime minister flees Sheikh Hasina Abroad.
A statement from the presidency said that the decision to form a transitional government headed by Younis was taken during a meeting between President Mohamed Shihab-Eldin, senior army officers, and leaders of the Students Against Discrimination group, the movement that organized the demonstrations in early July.
The statement said that the president asked the people to help him overcome the crisis, and stressed that the rapid formation of a transitional government is necessary to achieve this.
A spokesman for Yunus said he would return to Dhaka on Thursday after undergoing medical procedures in Paris.
Yunus outlined his priorities in an interview with the Financial Times, saying: “It is imperative that confidence in the government is restored quickly, we need calm, we need a roadmap for new elections, and we need to work to prepare a new leadership. In the coming days, I will talk to all stakeholders about how we can work together to build Bangladesh and how they can help.”
He stressed that he is not seeking to hold any position, whether elected or appointed, after the transitional period.
The 84-year-old economist, dubbed the “champion of the poor” for his efforts to improve the lives of millions of poor people through his pioneering microfinance bank, has been at odds with Sheikh Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking the blood of the poor”.
The leader of the Students Against Discrimination movement, Nahid Islam, described the discussions at the three-hour meeting at the presidency headquarters as “fruitful.”
Islam said that the students presented the president with a preliminary list of 10 to 15 names they would nominate for the transitional government, and he said that he expected the transitional government to be formed within 24 hours.
Hour. He explained that the students’ recommendations to the government members include figures from civil society and student representatives.
Under pressure from millions of protesters, Sheikh Hasina (76 years old) submitted her resignation on Monday and fled to India. Yesterday, the president dissolved parliament at the request of the leaders of the student protests and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is demanding elections within 3 months.
The death toll on Monday was the highest in a single day since the protests began in early July, bringing the total number of deaths in the demonstrations to 432, according to Agence France-Presse.
Police statement
On the other hand, the main police union in Bangladesh demanded in a statement “forgiveness for what the police forces did” who were “forced to open fire” and whose members were shown as “bad guys”.
The police declared a strike “until the safety” of every member of its staff is guaranteed.
The president dismissed the national police chief, and the military made changes that included demoting several senior officers seen as close to Hasina.
The country erupted in jubilation after Hasina's resignation, with crowds storming her official residence without a hitch after she fled and ended her 15-year rule in Bangladesh, a country of about 170 million people.
The situation in the country is gradually returning to normal after the chaos witnessed on Monday, but sources in the Bangladesh Central Bank said that new protests erupted on Wednesday in a neighborhood of the capital, Dhaka, when hundreds of officials in the central bank forced four of the bank's deputy governors to resign over corruption allegations.
Most schools and universities in Dhaka and other cities reopened after being closed since mid-July due to the protests. People boarded buses and other public transport and headed to offices and banks. The country's main garment factories, which had been closed for days, also began reopening on Wednesday.
