Samira Hussain
BBC correspondent in South Asia, Dhaka
Bbc
Bangladesh’s interim chief said he felt “dazzled” when he was asked to take care of after the longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was hunted from power last year.
“I didn’t know I would lead the government,” Muhammad Yunus told BBC. “I had never managed a government machine before and I had to do the buttons.
“Once this has been established, we started organizing things,” said the economist winning the Nobel Prize, adding that the restoration of the law and the order and the repair of the economy were priorities for the country.
We do not know if Hasina, who fled exile in India, and his party will participate in the elections that Yunus hopes to hold later this year. She is wanted in Bangladesh for alleged crimes against humanity.
“They (the Awami League) must decide if they want to do it, I cannot decide for them,” Yunus said in an interview with the BBC at his official residence in Dacca.
“The electoral commission decides who participates in the elections.”
He said: “Peace and order are the most important thing and the economy. It is a broken economy, a devastated economy.
“It is as if there had been a terrible tornado for 16 years and that we are trying to pick up the pieces.”
Sheikh Hasina was elected Prime Minister in 2009 and ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist. Members of his government of the Awami League have mercilessly reprimanded dissent. There have been generalized allegations of human rights violations and murder and imprisonment of political rivals while she was Prime Minister.
An uprising led by students forced Ms. Hasina to her duties in August. At the request of the demonstrators, Yunus returned to Bangladesh to lead the new interim government.
He said he will have elections between December 2025 and March 2026, depending on the speed with which his government can institute reforms, he deems necessary for free and fair elections.
“If reforms can be made as quickly as we want, December would be the moment when we have elections. If you have a longer version of the reforms, then we may need a few more months.”
Reuters
Violence last year has been the worst in Bangladesh since his 1971 war of independence
“We come from a complete disorder,” he said, referring to the violent demonstrations that swallowed up the Bangladesh last summer. “People get shot, killed.”
But almost seven months later, the inhabitants of Dacca say that the law and the order have not yet been restored and that things do not improve.
“Better is a relative term,” he said. “If you compare it to last year for example at the same time, it looks good.
“What’s going on right now is no different from any other time.”
Yunus blame many current Bangladesh problems on the previous government.
“I do not argue that these things should happen. I say that you have to consider, we are not an ideal country or an ideal city that suddenly we have made. It is a continuum of the country we have inherited, a country that has managed for many years.”
The victims of the brutal regime of Sheikh Hasina remain angry. Thousands of demonstrators have come down to the street in recent months, demanding that it be continued for the deadly repression against the demonstrators of the students.
A Bangladesh court issued an arrest warrant, but India has not yet responded.
Now, under the leadership of Yunus, there are questions about the security of people belonging to the political party of Sheikh Hasina.
In February, several houses of members of the Awami League, including that of the founder of Bangladesh – the late Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – were vandalized and set fire after her supporters were informed that she would give an address on Youtube.
In an article on social networks, the Awami League accused the interim government of justifying violence.
When asked by the BBC on the assertions of the members of the Awami League that Bangladesh is not sure for them, Yunus was quick to defend his government.
“There is a court, there is a law, there is a police station, they can go to complain, register their complaint,” he said. “You are just not going to a BBC correspondent to complain, you go to the police station to complain and see if the law follows its course.”
The Trump administration’s decision to reduce foreign aid and effectively end almost all programs funded by the American agency for international development will have an impact on countries like Bangladesh.
“It’s their decision,” said Yunus.
“It was useful. Because they do things we wanted to do, like fighting corruption and things like that, that we could not afford immediately.”
The United States is the third largest provider of official development assistance in Bangladesh. Last year, the United States hired $ 450 million in foreign aid.
When asked how it would compensate for the deficit, Yunus says “when it happens, we will get.”
