The News
Nobel Peace Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus on Thursday returned to Bangladesh, where he will lead an interim government after weeks of deadly anti-government protests unseated longtime Prime Minister Sheika Hasina.
The 84-year-old economist paid tribute to demonstrators who lost their lives in the unrest and said his first task was to restore “law and order,” AFP reported, after landing at Dhaka airport from Paris. “Bangladesh has got a second independence,” said Yunus, who is due to be sworn in later today.
On Wednesday a Dhaka court acquitted Yunus of charges supporters had said were politically motivated: The microlending pioneer was a longtime opponent of Hasina and emerged as the preferred leader of student protesters who led the anti-government demonstrations.
“While there is tentative new hope in Bangladesh today, we must remember that these are uncharted territories for us as a nation,” the Dhaka Tribune said in an editorial. “We must not make the mistakes previous administrations have made.”
SIGNALS
Incoming leader well-loved at home and by the West
Yunus is popular both at home and abroad on account of his pioneering work in microfinance. Locals often show up en masse to hear him speak, especially after his 2006 Nobel Peace Prize win. He also commands respect among Western officials and business leaders. “He is the voice of the people left behind,” Paul Polman, a former chief executive of Unilever and a personal friend of Yunus, told Bloomberg. “He’s a moral leader. He’s not somebody who likes to talk about himself. He likes to talk about the people he serves.”
Yunus targeted by Hasina government
The economist, who devised “microlending” to allow low-income Bangladeshis to borrow small loans of less than $100, was jailed earlier this year by Hasina’s government for allegedly violating the country’s labor laws. He said the charges were part of a broader political retaliation against him, given his vocal criticism of the previous government. Despite being lauded as a friend to Bangladesh’s poor, Hasina repeatedly referred to Yunus as a “bloodsucker” and claimed his bank charged high interest rates on its loans. It’s not entirely clear why Hasina’s government targeted Yunus, but some think it was due to his unsuccessful efforts to set up his own Citizen Power party in 2007, the BBC reported.
Bangladesh’s ‘second liberation’ is under way
Major changes are needed to ensure Bangladesh’s continued prosperity in the years ahead, Yunus said. Writing in The Economist on Tuesday, the new leader argued in favor of prompt, free, and fair elections, to be held within the next few months. Yunus also called for the nation’s young people to step up to leadership roles and run for office after their success in forcing a regime change. “We need young people who are not obsessed with settling scores, as too many of our previous governments were, but are instead intent on becoming a new generation of leaders focused on the future of our great nation,” he wrote.