DHAKA: Nobel laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus sworn in as the chief adviser of Bangladesh’s interim government on Thursday.
President Mohammed Shahabuddin administered the oath to him during a ceremony at the presidential palace in the capital Dhaka. The oath taking ceremony was attended by political leaders, civil society leaders, generals and diplomats.
The role of chief adviser is equivalent to that of the prime minister.
“I will uphold, support and protect the constitution,” Yunus said during the swearing-in ceremony, adding that he would perform his duties “sincerely”.
More than a dozen members of his cabinet including anti-quotas students’ leaders Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud also took the oath as advisers.
They included top leaders of the Students Against Discrimination group that led the weeks-long protests, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud.
Others included Touhid Hossain, a former foreign secretary, and Hassan Ariff, a former attorney general.
Syeda Rizwana Hasan, an award-winning environmental lawyer, and Asif Nazrul, a top law professor and writer, also were sworn in.
Adilur Rahman Khan, a prominent human rights activist who was sentenced to two years in jail by Hasina’s government, also took the oath as an adviser.
Earlier in the day, Dr. Muhammad Yunus who had been in France for a minor medical procedure, retuned to Dhaka via Emirates flight (EK-582) to lead a new interim government following weeks of tumultuous student protests forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to quit and flee to India.
Yunus was welcomed at the airport by Army Chief Waker-Uz-Zaman and key organizers of the Anti-Discriminatory Student Movement.
Yunus, a harsh critic of deposed Sheikh Hasina, was proposed for the job by the student protesters who led the campaign against Sheikh Hasina. Muhammad Yunus was expected to be sworn in as chief adviser along with a team of advisers on Thursday in an interim government which the army chief stated may include 15 members, although talks on the names continued till late on Wednesday.
The interim government was formed following the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled the country on August 5 after a student-led mass uprising.
Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party was not involved in all parties talks led by army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, who announced her resignation on Monday. Yunus is due to arrive Dhaka from Paris on Thursday, where he had been receiving treatment.
Sheikh Hasina’s dramatic exit on Monday from the South Asian country she ruled for four terms — and was reelected to a 5th in January — triggered jubilation and violence across the country, as crowds stormed her official residence unopposed. Sheikh Hasina fled to India where she is taking refuge at an air base near New Delhi.
Yunus and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), called for calm and an end to violence in the country on Wednesday. “No revenge and destruction,” said Sheikh Hasina’s arch rival and BNP leader Khaleda Zia, in a video address from her hospital bed to her supporters at a rally in Dhaka.
Zia and her exiled son Tarique Rahman, addressed the rally and called for elections to be conducted within three months.
