DHAKA: Prof. Muhammad Yunus, the chief of Bangladesh’s interim government, vowed on Sunday to shortly restore normalcy and introduce a series of reforms in the country after PM Sheikh Hasina quit and fled amid violent protests calling for her to be ousted.
Yunus, an 84-year-old Nobel prize laureate, took charge of Bangladesh on Aug. 8 as the chief adviser of its caretaker administration.
He was nominated for the role by the student movement that led the weeks-long nationwide demonstrations, in which hundreds of protesters were killed and thousands injured and arrested.
The interim government will prepare the country for new elections after a series of reforms, Yunus said during a special briefing in Dhaka, where he addressed foreign diplomats for the first time since taking office.
“We will hold a free and fair participatory election as soon as we can complete our mandate to carry out the vital reforms in our Election Commission, judiciary, civil administration, security forces and media,” he said.
“We will undertake robust and far-reaching economic reforms to restore macro-economic stability and sustain growth with priority attached to good governance and combating corruption and mismanagement.”
An economics professor, Yunus is a social entrepreneur and banker who was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering microfinance work that helped alleviate poverty in Bangladesh. It has now been widely adopted around the world.
The main issue currently being tackled by the interim administration is law enforcement, which has been in disarray since 150,000 of the country’s police officers went on strike a day after the ousting of Hasina’s government on Aug. 6.
Many police feared retribution and punishment from the new administration and the student movement for the force with which they tried to crush the uprising. Most of them returned to work last week after negotiations with the new government.
“We will be close to normalcy within a short period,” Yunus said.
“We also made it a priority to ensure justice and accountability for all the killings and violence committed during the recent mass uprising. I have spoken to UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk.”
The UN will send its team on a fact-finding mission next week to investigate the killings that preceded Hasina’s downfall.
“We will provide whatever support the UN investigators need,” Yunus said. “We will also make sincere efforts to promote national reconciliation.”
