DHAKA: Bangladesh\u2019s Muhammad Yunus \u201cneeds to remain\u201d in office as interim leader to ensure a peaceful transition of power, a cabinet member and special adviser to Yunus said Friday.<\/p>\n
Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after a mass uprising last year, had threatened to quit the job if parties did not give him their backing, a political ally and sources in his office said.<\/p>\n
The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that toppled then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, with parties protesting on the streets over a string of demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the sake of Bangladesh and a peaceful democratic transition, Professor Yunus needs to remain in office,\u201d Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, a special assistant to Yunus, and head of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, said in a post on Facebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Chief Adviser is not going to step down,\u201d he added. \u201cHe does not hanker after power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bangladesh\u2019s political crisis has escalated this week, with rival parties protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing demands.<\/p>\n
Yunus\u2019s reported threat to stand down came after thousands of supporters of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rallied in Dhaka on Wednesday, holding large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time.<\/p>\n
Yunus has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest, but supporters of the BNP \u2014 seen as the front-runners in highly anticipated elections that will be the first since Hasina was overthrown \u2014 demanded he fix a date.<\/p>\n
Yunus\u2019s relationship with the military has also reportedly deteriorated.<\/p>\n
According to local media and military sources, powerful army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said on Wednesday that elections should be held by December.<\/p>\n
Taiyeb issued a warning to the army on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe army can\u2019t meddle in politics,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe army doesn\u2019t do that in any civilized country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy saying that the election has to be held by December, the military chief failed to maintain his jurisdictional correctness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DHAKA: Bangladesh\u2019s Muhammad Yunus \u201cneeds to remain\u201d in office as interim leader to ensure a peaceful transition of power, a cabinet member and special adviser to Yunus said Friday. Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after a mass uprising last year, had threatened to quit the job if parties did not …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":81457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81460,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81447\/revisions\/81460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}