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Muhammad Yunus was named head of Bangladesh’s interim government after prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country following a popular student-led uprising.
The 84-year-old microlending champion, who Ms Hasina considers one of her biggest rivals, has been given the Herculean task of filling the electricity gap in Bangladesh, as the country of 170 million people struggles with unemployment and rising inflation.
His name was proposed by student group leaders and accepted by president Mohammed Shahabuddin after consultation with military chiefs, political parties, business leaders, and members of civil society.
Anti-job protests that ended with Ms Hasina’s resignation left at least 440 people dead in three-way violence between students, law enforcement officers and the student wing of the ruling party, according to a Bangladeshi daily. Hello Prothom.
“If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the bravery of my people, then I will take it,” Mr Yunus, who was in Paris as mass protests swept across the South Asian country, told AFP. Mr. Yunus called Ms. Hasina’s resignation the “second day of liberation”.
Asif Mahmud, the main leader of the Students Against Discrimination group, wrote: “In Dr. Yunus, we believe.” Mr Yunus, considered one of Ms Hasina’s fiercest critics, has been booked in more than 200 cases, including forgery, money laundering and embezzlement during Ms Hasina’s 15-year administration.
Mr Yunus has been credited with helping lift millions of people out of poverty by providing small loans of less than £80 to rural people through the Grameen Bank, which he founded in 1983. other countries.
Ms Hasina, however, has accused her of “sucking the blood” of the poor in 2011.
Ms. Hasina’s rivalry began when Mr. Yusuf launched a political party to challenge the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), just a year after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work developing the microcredit market.
“Is it a crime if citizens try to form a political party?” Mr Yunus questioned this year, saying he dropped the idea within 10 weeks after realizing it was politically unsuitable.
“Starting again will be very painful because we have brought it to a point where we have lost it,” he told Reuters, criticizing the government’s efforts to eliminate political strife after the January election in which Hasina won a fourth term in office. because the opposition party boycotted the election.
Over the years, Hasina has accused her of using force and other means to recover loans from poor rural women as head of the Grameen Bank. Mr. Yunus denied the allegations, calling them “made up stories”.
Ms. Hasina’s administration began investigating the bank’s activities in 2011 and Mr. Yunus was fired as managing director for allegedly violating government pension regulations. He was tried in 2013 on charges of receiving money without the government’s consent, including the Nobel Prize and royalties from books.
He later faced other charges involving other companies he created, including Grameen Telecom, which is part of the country’s largest mobile phone company, GrameenPhone, a subsidiary of Norway’s Telenor telecommunications company.
In 2023, some former employees of Grameen Telecom filed a case against Mr. Yunus accusing him of embezzling work allowances. He denied the allegations.
Earlier this year, a special court of judges in Bangladesh charged Mr Yunus and 13 others in a £1.6m embezzlement case. Mr. Yunus pleaded not guilty and is out of bail for now.
His supporters say he was targeted because of his ties to Ms. Hasina.
Born in 1940 in Chittagong, a port city in Bangladesh, he earned a PhD from Vanderbilt University in the US and taught there briefly before returning to Bangladesh.
Mr. Yunus in 2004 told the Associated Press that he had a “eureka move” to start the Grameen Bank when he met a poor woman who weaves bamboo bracelets who was struggling to pay off her debts. “I didn’t know how he could be so poor when he made such beautiful things,” she recalled.
