Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus To Meet Key Parties As Pressure Grows

Bangladesh’s interim chief, who took over after a mass rebellion final yr, will meet highly effective events pressurising his authorities afterward Saturday, days after he reportedly threatened to give up.

Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads the caretaker authorities as its chief advisor till elections are held, has known as for rival political events jostling for energy to provide him their full assist.

His press secretary Shafiqul Alam confirmed Yunus would meet leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen because the frontrunners in elections that might be held by December on the earliest, and the primary since a student-led revolt compelled then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee in August 2024.

Yunus may also meet leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation’s largest Islamist social gathering.

“He is assembly BNP and Jamaat leaders this night,” Alam instructed AFP.

The South Asian nation of some 170 million folks has been in political turmoil since Hasina fled, however this week has seen an escalation with rival events protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing calls for.

“Our senior members can be there for the talks,” mentioned BNP media official Shairul Kabir Khan.

Jamaat-e-Islami’s media spokesperson Ataur Rahman Sarkar additionally confirmed that they had been invited.

On Thursday, a political ally and sources in his workplace mentioned Yunus had threatened to resign if Bangladesh’s events and factions didn’t again him.

BNP supporters on Wednesday held large-scale protests in opposition to the interim authorities for the primary time, demanding he repair an election date.

Microfinance pioneer Yunus — who has led the nation after coming back from exile on the behest of protesters — says he has an obligation to implement democratic reforms earlier than elections.

Jamaat-e-Islami loyalists have additionally protested in opposition to the federal government, demanding the abolition of a girls’s fee searching for equality.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)