The Bangladesh flag flies from the flagpole.
Richard Sharrocks | The Moment | Getty Images
Protest leaders in Bangladesh said they expected members of an interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to be finalized on Wednesday after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India following a violent crackdown on a student-led uprising.
Bangladesh’s president late on Tuesday appointed Yunus, who was recommended by student leaders, as head of the interim government and said the remaining members needed to be identified quickly to overcome the current crisis and pave the way for elections.
The interim government will fill the power vacuum left after the head of Bangladesh’s armed forces announced Hasina’s resignation in a televised speech on Monday.
“It is crucial to quickly restore trust in the government,” Yunus, 84, told the Financial Times on Wednesday. He said he would not seek elected office or appointments after the transition period.
His spokesman said he was expected to return to Dhaka on Thursday after undergoing a medical procedure in Paris.
“We need calm, we need a road map for new elections and we need to work hard to prepare for new leadership,” Yunus told the newspaper.
“In the coming days, I will discuss with all relevant parties how we can work together to rebuild Bangladesh and how they can help.”
Hasina’s resignation sparked nationwide jubilation and crowds poured into her official residence without resistance after she fled, ending a 15-year second reign in a country of 170 million that has suffered economic hardship in recent years.
Bangladesh Bank sources said life was slowly returning to normal after Monday’s chaos, but fresh protests erupted in a Dhaka neighborhood on Wednesday, with hundreds of central bank officials accused of corruption, forcing the resignation of four deputy governors.
The bank had no immediate comment.
Hundreds of people gathered at a rally in Dhaka by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, whose leader Khaleda Zia was placed under presidential house arrest on Tuesday.
Back to normal
Neighboring India, which has close cultural and commercial ties with Bangladesh, has evacuated all non-essential staff and their families from its embassy and four consulates in Bangladesh, two Indian government sources said.
Most school and university campuses in Dhaka and other cities were closed in mid-July due to protests, but reopened as people used buses and other transport to travel to offices and banks. The country’s main garment factories, which had been closed for several days, began reopening on Wednesday.
The campaign to oust Hasina grew out of demonstrations against public sector job quotas for family members of veterans of Pakistan’s 1971 war of independence, which critics saw as a means to preserve jobs for allies of the ruling party.
President Mohammad Shahabuddin also suggested nominating a veteran to the interim government.
In its first comments since the protests erupted, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that “the government and people of Pakistan stand with the people of Bangladesh and sincerely hope for a peaceful and speedy return to normalcy.”
Nahid Islam, one of the main leaders of the student movement, told reporters after the president announced that students had recommended 10 to 15 members of the interim government in a preliminary list shared with the president.
Islam said he expected the members of the interim government to be finalized within 24 hours starting Tuesday evening. Islam said students’ proposals to the government included members of civil society and student representatives.
Hasina arrived in New Delhi on Monday and is staying in a safe house on the outskirts of the capital. Indian media reported that she planned to continue traveling to the UK, but the UK Home Office has yet to comment.
