The Nobel Prize winning banker tasked with leading his country out of chaos

Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bangladesh’s Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been chosen to head the country’s interim government after the nation’s longtime prime minister resigned and fled abroad in the face of violent unrest against her rule.

Known as the “banker to the poorest of the poor” and a longtime critic of the ousted Sheikh Hasina, Yunus will act as a caretaker premier until new elections are held. The decision followed a meeting late on Tuesday that included student protest leaders, military chiefs, civil society members and business leaders.

Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus.Credit: AP

Hasina was forced to flee on Monday after weeks of protests over a quota system for allocating government jobs turned into a broader challenge to her 15-year rule, which was marked by a rising economy but an increasingly authoritarian streak.

Hasina’s departure has plunged Bangladesh into a political crisis.

The army has temporarily taken control, but it is unclear what its role would be in an interim government after the president dissolved parliament on Tuesday to pave the way for elections.

Student leaders who organised the protests have wanted Yunus, who is currently in Paris for the Olympics as an adviser to its organisers, to lead an interim government.

A protester with a burning tyre during a protest against Sheikh Hasina and her government in Dhaka.Credit: AP

He could not immediately be reached for comment, but key student leader Nahid Islam asserted that Yunus agreed to step in during a discussion with them.

Yunus, 84, called Hasina’s resignation the country’s “second liberation day.” She once called him a “bloodsucker”.

An economist and banker by profession, Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering the use of microcredit to help impoverished people, particularly women.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee credited Yunus and his Grameen Bank “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below”.

Yunus founded Grameen Bank in 1983 to provide small loans to entrepreneurs who would not normally qualify to receive them. The bank’s success in lifting people out of poverty led to similar micro-financing efforts in other countries.

He ran into trouble with Hasina in 2008, when her administration launched a series of investigations into him.

He had announced he would form a political party in 2007 when the country was run by a military-backed government but did not follow through.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has left the country after deadly protests, ending 15 years in power.Credit: AP

During the investigations, Hasina accused Yunus as the head of Grameen Bank of using force and other means to recover loans from poor rural women, allegations Yunus denied.

Hasina’s government began reviewing the bank’s activities in 2011, and Yunus was fired as managing director for allegedly violating government retirement regulations.

He was put on trial in 2013 on charges of receiving money without government permission, including his Nobel Prize and royalties from a book.

He later faced more charges involving other companies he created, including Grameen Telecom, which is part of the country’s largest mobile phone company, GrameenPhone, a subsidiary of Norwegian telecom giant Telenor.

In 2023, some former Grameen Telecom workers filed a case against Yunus accusing him of siphoning off their job benefits. He denied the accusations.

Men run past a burning vehicle set on fire by protesters during unrest in Bangladesh.Credit: AP

Earlier this year, a special judge’s court in Bangladesh indicted Yunus and 13 others on charges over the $US2 million ($3 million) embezzlement case. Yunus pleaded not guilty and is out on bail for now.

Yunus’ supporters say he has been targeted because of his frosty relations with Hasina.

Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, a seaport city in Bangladesh. He received his PhD from Vanderbilt University in Nashville in the US and taught there briefly before returning to Bangladesh.

In a 2004 interview with The Associated Press, Yunus said he had a “eureka movement” to establish Grameen Bank when he met a poor woman weaving bamboo stools who was struggling to pay her debts.

“I couldn’t understand how she could be so poor when she was making such beautiful things,” he recalled in the interview.

AP

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