Bangladesh’s military chief said Wednesday that an interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus would be sworn in on Thursday night as he returns from Paris to take over the administration amid struggle for restoring stability after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to step down and flee.
Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman said in a televised address late Wednesday afternoon that the responsible for the violence since Hasina’s resignation would be brought to justice.
Yunus is leaving Paris to return home on Thursday to take the oath of office at night.
Speaking to reporters in Paris, Yunis said “I’m looking forward to going back home and seeing what’s happening there, and how we can organize ourselves to get out of the trouble that we are in.″
Asked when elections would be held, he put his hand up as if to indicate it was too early to say. ″I’ll go and talk to them. I’m just fresh in this whole area.″
Opposition holds public rally
Bangladesh’s main opposition party was holding a public rally in the nation’s capital Wednesday as the country was preparing to form an interim government led by a Nobel laureate, after a mass uprising that left hundreds of people dead and forced the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down and flee the country.
The student leaders, who organized the weeks of mass protests, said they would unveil a full list of the new Cabinet on Wednesday. The streets of Bangladesh were calm after reports of violence against supporters of Hasina, police and minority communities which followed soon after she fled to India.
The rally by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party — led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Hasina’s archrival — came a day after her release from house arrest, amid a new political environment in the country.
Zia’s freedom is largely symbolic as the ailing leader has been staying outside the prison under an executive order of the former government but was not allowed to travel abroad. Her son and the acting head of the party, Tarique Rahman, is expected to address the crowd online from his home in London, where he has been living in exile since 2008. He faces several criminal cases.
Zia, who ruled the country from 2001 to 2006, was convicted on corruption charges in 2018 and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Her party said the charges were politically motivated to keep her away from politics.
The rally started in the afternoon but thousands of Zia’s supporters started gathering in front of its party headquarters in Dhaka’s Naya Paltan area from before noon for the rally.