Who is Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh's interim leader?

After weeks of violent political unrest forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee the country, marking an unceremonious end to her 15-year rule, Bangladesh finds itself in the midst of political turmoil.

Though the way forward remains uncertain, one thing is now clear: Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will head a caretaker administration.

Yunus is the man student leaders called for, saying they did not want an army-led government. "In Dr. Yunus, we trust," Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, wrote on Facebook before Yunus was announced as leader.

His appointment on Tuesday came less than a day after Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin dissolved parliament, a key demand of the protesters. Yunus had agreed to be an advisor for forming the new administration before he was announced as the interim head.

Who is Muhammad Yunus?

Muhammad Yunus, 84, is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader.

Born in 1940 in Chittagong, southeastern Bangladesh, he went on to pursue his PhD in economics at Vanderbilt University in the US.

Yunus returned to his hometown in 1972 and became the head of the rural economics program at the University of Chittagong.

After witnessing the devastation caused by the 1974 famine in rural Bangladesh, which killed thousands of people, he began lending small amounts of credit to poor communities.

The Grameen Bank he founded in 1983 later pioneered the use of microlending to help impoverished people, particularly women.

The bank's success in lifting people out of poverty led to similar microfinancing efforts in other countries.

For their efforts toward eradicating poverty, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

"Poverty was all around me, and I could not turn away from it," he said during his Nobel acceptance speech about the situation facing Bangladesh in 1974. "I found it difficult to teach elegant theories of economics in the university classroom ... I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me."

For his work, Yunus gained global prominence as the "banker to the poorest of the poor."

He was also awarded Bangladesh's highest civilian honor, the Independence Day Award, in 1987 and the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Yunus enjoys a good reputation in the South Asian country, particularly among the youth and educated. He has actively supported the students since the start of their protests.

His popularity, wide acceptability and international recognition have been cited by student leaders as the reasons for their demand to name him the interim leader of Bangladesh. 

Political ambitions and legal woes

In early 2007, Yunus announced the formation of a political party called Nagarik Shakti (Citizens' Power), saying there was no way he could stay out of politics.

But a few weeks after the announcement, he stepped back from the idea.

When Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2009, she became a critic of Yunus, though she previously had been a supporter.

Her administration launched a series of investigations into him and the Grameen Bank.

Hasina called Yunus a "bloodsucker," accusing him of using force and other means to recover loans from poor rural women.

Hasina's government began reviewing the Grameen Bank's activities in 2011, and Yunus was fired as managing director for allegedly violating government retirement regulations.

'A smear campaign'

Yunus was put on trial in 2013 on charges of receiving money without government permission, including from his Nobel Peace Prize award and royalties from a book.

He later faced charges involving other companies he created, including Grameen Telecom, part of Bangladesh's largest mobile phone company, Grameen Phone, and a subsidiary of Norwegian telecom giant Telenor.

Earlier this year, a court in Bangladesh indicted Yunus and 13 others on charges over a $2 million (€1.83 million) embezzlement case.

Yunus pleaded not guilty and is out on bail for now.

His supporters say he has been targeted because of his previous political ambitions and frosty relations with Hasina.

Yunus faced "a smear campaign and character assassination attempt by the highest tier of the ruling Awami League party for the past 12 years. And, they have an iron grip on the judiciary," Asif Nazrul, a law professor at Dhaka University, told DW earlier this year.

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