Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed Yunus was sworn in on Thursday as the new head of the interim government, called to lead the transition after the protests that led to the fall of veteran Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has now fled to India.
The ceremony, led by President Mohamed Shahabuddin, took place at the presidential palace. Yunus will be joined by activists, professors and a former minister as advisors in the new government, within a council made up of a total of 17 people.
Yunus, who hastened his return from Paris, had already addressed his compatriots earlier to ask for calm. “If we take the path of violence, everything will be destroyed,” he said. In what is his first statement after confirming that he will participate in the new interim government, Yunus has asked that “all types of violence” be left aside.
“This is our beautiful country, with many exciting possibilities. We must protect it and make it a wonderful country for ourselves and our future generations,” he said in a statement reported by the ‘Daily Sun’ newspaper.
Yunus thanked the “brave students” who made this “victory” possible and the people for “giving them their full support.” In that sense, he stressed the need not to let this new opportunity pass.
The president of Bangladesh confirmed on Tuesday the appointment of Yunus as responsible for supervising the transitional government and calling the next elections, which in his own words should be held “within a few months.”
On Wednesday, Yunus was acquitted of a six-month sentence imposed on him in January for a series of violations of labor laws that he allegedly committed through the company he heads, Grameen Telecom, a non-profit entity that offers the rural population access to information technology.
After the protests, which have already left more than 300 dead, caused Hasina to flee to India after fifteen years in office, After re-electing in a recent election in which only 40 percent of the population participated, Yunus was proposed by protesters to oversee the new interim government.
He now faces the challenge of calming a social unrest that began with a quota system that reserves 30 percent of public jobs for the children of veterans of the War of Independence.
