On a day that will be long remembered, Bangladesh¡¯s interim leader, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, stepped down Monday after handing power to an elected government. In a broadcast to the nation and the world, he said: ¡°Let the practice of democracy, freedom of speech and fundamental rights that has begun not be halted.¡±
Yunus had returned from self-imposed exile in August 2024, days after the authoritarian government of Sheikh Hasina was overthrown in a student-led ¡°Gen-Z¡± uprising and she fled by helicopter to India.
Last week, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its leader Tarique Rahman won a commanding electoral victory. Perhaps more significantly ¡ª only time will tell ¡ª voters in the nation of around 170 million endorsed sweeping democratic reforms in a referendum held the same day.
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