Nobel laureate Prof Yunus has been named chief adviser of Bangladesh’s interim governmen. The decision has come after a meeting on the formation of the interim government between key organisers of the anti-discriminatory movement and President Mohammed Shahabuddin.
Bangladesh is facing uncertainty after the resignation and fleeing of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the face of a mass uprising against her and her Awami League government. In the rioting and mob violence and rioting that followed.
Yunus, 84, is best known for founding Grameen Bank and pioneering microcredit – providing tiny business loans to the world’s poorest people, most of them women. Though he’s spent much of his life in the public eye, politics is largely unexplored terrain. In 2007, the Bangladeshi government splintered, and the military seized power. Yunus, who’d never run for office, considered forming a new party to fill the vacuum, but ultimately scrapped the idea within a few weeks.
Over the past couple of years, Prof. Yunus has spent much of his time inside Dhaka’s courtrooms, fighting about 200 charges against him and his associates, including allegations of money laundering and graft. He and his supporters say Hasina’s government was behind the legal pressure and perhaps saw him as a threat to her power. She denied those accusations.
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