Nobel winner Muhammad Yunus to lead Bangladesh after PM flees bloody protests

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has agreed to a leading role in Bangladesh's interim government after the country's longtime prime minister fled amid a grisly crackdown on youth protesters.

Yunus, 84, known as the "banker to the poor," and a pioneer in microcredit lending, will serve as "chief advisor" to the new government, the Daily Star newspaper reported Tuesday.

"The caretaker-in-chief will be Professor Yunus," Shahidul Alam, a leading member of the country's civil society movement, told Paste BN. "I spoke to him and he said that he had been approached and he had agreed" to take the role.

Demonstrators who ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday, ending 15 years of increasingly brutal autocratic rule, have demanded that Yunus, a national hero, helm an interim government. Yunus and a top aide did not immediately return emails and calls seeking comment.

Anger and joy on the streets

There was jubilation and also lingering anger on the streets of the capital Dhaka on Tuesday after mass protests forced Hasina to flee the country, but many worried what would happen next.

"The first priority is that the country be safe, safe for everyone," Alam, who spent more than 100 days jailed as a political prisoner, said in a phone interview. On Monday, the award-winning photographer said, he was among a group of demonstrators who were fired on by police. "It was pretty dramatic," he said. "Three people in the group got bullet wounds."

An estimated 250 people were killed and thousands injured as security forces attempted to stamp out three weeks of protests over a cratering economy and Hasina's brutal and autocratic rule. More still were killed in revenge attacks after Hasina fled.

"We are free now - we have won!" activist Syed Tanveer Rahman, 30, told Reuters of the movement that started as a fight for fair access to government jobs and blossomed into a national protest.. "We began the movement to make the government's recruitment tests fairer, but it has turned into a commitment to reform our whole system and make it fairer for all," Rahman said.

Needing 'a genuine democracy'

The advocacy group Freedom House gives Bangladesh a score of 40 out of 100, or "partly free" in its 2024 index. "The ruling Awami League (AL) has consolidated political power through sustained harassment of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and those perceived to be allied with it, as well as of critical media and voices in civil society," the group said. "Corruption is endemic, and anti-corruption efforts have been weakened by politicized enforcement."

"What is needed now is a genuine democracy, that we not be under a tyrant or the military," Alam said. Bangladesh has been alternately ruled by two dynastic political parties for much of the last 30 years, and has suffered several military coups since it was founded in 1971.

"I can tell you I am feeling a tremendous joy of liberation − liberation from a harsh dictatorship," said Lamisa Janan, a high school student who said she dashed out of her home to join the crowds as soon as she heard the government had fallen.

But even after Hasina had fled, there was still anger amongst the joy. Hasina's exit ended a 15-year second stint in power as leader of a political movement she inherited from her father who was assassinated in a 1975 coup.

'We will destroy all the statues'

Thousands stormed Hasina's official residence, shouting slogans, pumping their fists and making victory signs. Some were seen carrying away televisions, furniture and clothes.

At a busy intersection, protesters climbed a large statue of Hasina's father, independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and hacked at its head with axes, hammers and chisels.

"She made us bow down to the image of her father. Everywhere you see his statues, photos," said Zafar Ahmed, a young man who joined in the destruction. "We will destroy all the statues."

In Dhanmondi, an upmarket neighbourhood considered a stronghold of the ruling Awami League, protesters torched the party chairperson's office and the house where Hasina lived while she was opposition leader from 2001 to 2006.

Looting and destruction

They also set fire to the Bangabandhu Museum in Dhanmondi, formerly Hasina's father's residence before he was assassinated there.

Many young people said they were concerned about how the situation would evolve in the coming days and months.

"I am sickened by the scenes of chaos and looting at the public institutions - that is not the way to celebrate," said Jahanara Amin, a 35-year-old banker.

"It is not the time for triumphal celebration. There is a long road ahead to ensure that the system works better for everyone, including the young people," said Minhazul Islam, a researcher at Unnayan Shamunnay, a policy think tank.

Bangladesh's parliament was dissolved on Tuesday, the president's office said in a statement hours after protesting student leaders set a deadline for that to happen and warned a "strict program" would be launched if it did not.

Student leaders demanded Nobel laureate Yunus lead an interim government. The founder of the global microcredit movement, Yunus was an arch foe of Hasina, who in turn accused him of "sucking blood from the poor" and tried to seize the Grameen empire − including a large stake in a mobile phone carrier − for her political allies.

Yunus and his Grameen Bank received the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 for their work to “create economic and social development from below.”

Former Prime Minister Khaleeda Zia, who for decades was Hasina's foil, was released from prison.

Contributing: Reuters