Bangladesh minister says Yunus ‘not going to step down’

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus “needs to remain” in office as interim leader to ensure a peaceful transition of power, a cabinet member and special adviser to Yunus said Friday.

Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after a mass uprising last year, had threatened to quit the job if parties did not give him their backing, a political ally and sources in his office said.

The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that toppled then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, with parties protesting on the streets over a string of demands.

“For the sake of Bangladesh and a peaceful democratic transition, Professor Yunus needs to remain in office,” Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, a special assistant to Yunus, and head of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, said in a post on Facebook.

“The Chief Adviser is not going to step down,” he added. “He does not hanker after power.”

Bangladesh’s political crisis has escalated this week, with rival parties protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing demands.

Yunus’s reported threat to stand down came after thousands of supporters of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rallied in Dhaka on Wednesday, holding large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time.

Yunus has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest, but supporters of the BNP — seen as the front-runners in highly anticipated elections that will be the first since Hasina was overthrown — demanded he fix a date.

Yunus’s relationship with the military has also reportedly deteriorated.

According to local media and military sources, powerful army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said on Wednesday that elections should be held by December.

Taiyeb issued a warning to the army on Friday.

“The army can’t meddle in politics,” he wrote.

“The army doesn’t do that in any civilised country,” he added.

“By saying that the election has to be held by December, the military chief failed to maintain his jurisdictional correctness.”

-AFP