Muhammad Yunus compares the leadership task to clarify after the tornado

Bangladesh’s interim leader says he felt “dazzled” when asked to take charge after the long -term prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, was expelled from power last year.

“I had no idea that I would lead the government,” said Muhammad Yunus to the BBC. “He had never directed a government machine before and had to hit the buttons.

“Once it was established, we began to organize things,” said Nobel Prize -winning economist, adding that restoring the law and order and fixing the economy were priorities for the country.

It is not clear if you have, who fled into exile in India, and his party will participate in the elections that Yunus hopes to celebrate at the end of this year. She is sought in Bangladesh for supposed crimes against humanity.

“They (the Awami League) have to decide if they want to do it, I can’t decide for them,” Yunus said in an interview with the BBC in his official residence in Dhaka.

“The Electoral Commission decides who participates in the elections.”

He said: “Peace and order are the most important and the economy. It is a shattered economy, a devastated economy.

“It’s as if there had been a terrible tornado for 16 years and we are trying to collect the pieces.”

Sheikh Hasina was chosen Prime Minister in 2009 and ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist. Members of his Government of the Awami League were ruthlessly measured in the dissent. There were generalized accusations of human rights violations and the murder and imprisonment of political rivals while she was prime minister.

TO Survey led by students forced Mrs. Hasina from the office in August. At the request of the protesters, Yunus returned to Bangladesh to lead the new interim government.

He says that he will celebrate elections between December 2025 and March 2026, depending on the speed with which his government can institute reforms that he believes necessary for free and fair elections.

“If the reforms can be done as fast as we want, then December would be the time when we celebrate elections. If you have a longer version of reforms, then we may need a few more months.”

“We come from the complete disorder,” he said, referring to the violent protests that wrapped Bangladesh last summer. “People are shot dead, murdered.”

But almost seven months later, people in Dhaka say that law and order have not yet been restored, and that things are not improving.

“It is better a relative term,” he said. “If you are comparing it with the last year, for example, at the same time, it looks good.

“What is happening at this time is no different from any other time.”

Yunus blames many of Bangladesh’s current problems to the previous government.

“I am not supporting that these things should happen. I am saying that, you should consider, we are not an ideal country or an ideal city that we suddenly did. It is a continuum of the country we inherited, a country that has been executing for many, many years.”

The victims of the brutal regime of Sheikh Hasina remain angry. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in recent months, demanding that it be processed by the deadly repression against student protesters.

A court in Bangladesh has issued an arrest warrant.But India has not yet answered.

Now, under Yunus’s leadership, there are questions about the security of those who belong to the political party of Sheikh Hasina.

In February, several houses of members of the Awami League, including that of the founder of Bangladesh, the late father of Hasina, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were destroyed and burned after his followers told him that he would give a direction on YouTube.

In a publication on social networks, the Awami League accused the interim government of justifying violence.

When the BBC asked him about the claims of the members of the Awami League that Bangladesh is not safe for them, Yunus hastened to defend his government.

“There is a court, there is a law, there is a police station, they can go and complain, register their complaint,” he said. “You just don’t go to a BBC correspondent to complain, you go to the police station to complain and see if the law is taking its course.”

The Trump administration decision to reduce foreign aid and effectively end almost all programs financed by the United States Agency for International Development. It will have an impact on countries like Bangladesh.

“It’s your decision,” says Yunus.

“It has been useful. Because they are doing things we wanted to do, such as fighting corruption and things like that, we couldn’t pay immediately.”

The United States is the third largest development assistance provider to Bangladesh. Last year, the United States committed $ 450 million in foreign aid.

When asked how the deficit will compensate, Yunus says “when it happens, we will.”