Who is Muhammad Yunus? The Nobel Peace Prize laureate to lead Bangladesh’s interim govt

Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner renowned for his work with impoverished communities and a vocal critic of the deposed Sheikh Hasina, has been appointed to lead Bangladesh's interim government.

This comes after Hasina resigned and fled the country amid widespread unrest against her administration. Yunus will serve as the caretaker prime minister until new elections are organized. The appointment was decided in a meeting on Tuesday night, which included leaders from student protests, military officials, civil society representatives, and business figures.

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Sheikh Hasina was compelled to flee on Monday following weeks of protests against a government job quota system, which evolved into a larger challenge to her 15-year rule. Her tenure, noted for economic growth but increasingly authoritarian tendencies, came under severe scrutiny.

Hasina's departure has thrown Bangladesh into a political crisis. The military has temporarily assumed control, but its future role in the interim government remains uncertain after the president dissolved Parliament on Tuesday to prepare for elections, as reported by The Associated Press.

Student leaders behind the protests have called for Muhammad Yunus, who is currently in Paris advising the Olympic organizers, to lead the interim government.

Yunus called her resignation the country’s “second liberation day.” She once called him a “bloodsucker.” The 83-year-old is a well-known critic and political opponent of Hasina.

Who is Muhammad Yunus?

An economist and banker, Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his groundbreaking work with microcredit, aimed at aiding impoverished individuals, especially women. The Nobel Committee recognized Yunus and his Grameen Bank for their efforts to foster economic and social development from the grassroots level.

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Yunus established Grameen Bank in 1983 to offer small loans to entrepreneurs who were typically ineligible for traditional credit. The bank's success in alleviating poverty inspired similar microfinance initiatives globally.

However, Yunus's relationship with Sheikh Hasina soured in 2008 when her government launched investigations into him. This tension arose after Yunus had announced plans to form a political party in 2007, during a period when the country was under military-backed rule, although he never pursued this initiative.

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During the investigations, Sheikh Hasina accused Muhammad Yunus of using coercion and other methods to collect loans from poor rural women while he was at the helm of Grameen Bank. Yunus refuted these claims.

In 2011, Hasina's government began scrutinizing the bank’s operations, leading to Yunus’s dismissal as managing director on grounds of breaching retirement regulations. In 2013, he faced trial for allegedly accepting funds without government approval, including his Nobel Prize award and royalties from a book.

Further complications arose with charges related to other ventures he founded, such as Grameen Telecom, which is part of Bangladesh's largest mobile network, GrameenPhone, a subsidiary of the Norwegian telecom giant Telenor. In 2023, former Grameen Telecom employees filed a lawsuit accusing Yunus of misappropriating their job benefits, which he denied.

Earlier this year, Yunus and 13 others were indicted by a special court in Bangladesh on charges related to a $2 million embezzlement case. Yunus has pleaded not guilty and is currently out on bail.

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Supporters of Muhammad Yunus argue that he has been targeted due to his strained relationship with Sheikh Hasina.

Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, a port city in Bangladesh. After earning his PhD from Vanderbilt University in the United States and briefly teaching there, he returned to Bangladesh.

In a 2004 interview with The Associated Press, Yunus described a pivotal moment that led him to create Grameen Bank. He recounted meeting a poor woman who was weaving bamboo stools but struggling to repay her debts. This encounter, he said, sparked his “eureka moment” for founding the bank, as he was struck by the disparity between her apparent skill and her financial hardship.

(With inputs from AP)