Bangladesh Nobel winner Yunus should lead caretaker government: student protest leader

Bangladesh student protesters said Tuesday they would push for Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to lead an interim government, a day after the prime minister was ousted and the military took charge.

“We have decided that the interim government would be formed in which internationally renowned Nobel Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus, who has wide acceptability, would be the chief adviser,” Nahid Islam, the main leader of Students Against Discrimination (SAD), said in a video message.

Bangladesh army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman on Monday said in a broadcast on state television that Sheikh Hasina had resigned as prime minister and the military would form a caretaker government.

Waker is expected to meet the student leaders later on Tuesday.

Yunus, 84, a respected economist, is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but earned the enmity of Hasina, who accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.

Hasina, 76, had been in power since 2009 but was accused of rigging elections in January and then watched millions of people take to the streets over the past month demanding she step down.

“In Dr. Yunus, we trust,” Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the SAD group, wrote on Facebook.

Yunus is currently in Europe, and a close aide said late Monday that he had not received any offer from the military to lead the interim government.