'Everything has to be restarted' - Bangladesh interim leader Muhammad Yunus Interview | DW News

In an interview with DW, Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus spoke about the challenges he is facing in his new role and the reforms he's planning to implement before holding a general election. Yunus took over leadership of the South Asian country after mass student-led protests led to the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who had ruled Bangladesh with an iron-fist for the past 15 years.

Yunus told DW that Hasina "destroyed almost all institutions" and "the economy was shattered."

"You do not know where to begin because everything has to be restarted in a different way," he said, adding that his interim administration wants to "establish citizens' rights, human rights, democracy and everything that goes with a good governance."

He also hinted at amending the constitution. "We should be focusing on the major issues of constitution and build a consensus. We cannot do anything without a consensus because our strength comes from the consensus. If we can establish the consensus, we go ahead and do that."

But Yunus refused to give an exact date for the next election, saying that it will be held "as soon as possible."

"That is our mandate. We want to come to the election and have a decent election, beautiful election, and celebrate the victory of a particular party or whatever party which comes in, and hand over the power to the newly elected government. So this should be as brief as possible. We cannot give you date and time right now."

During the interview, Yunus also accused Hasina's administration of corruption, which he said shattered the nation's economy.

"Money siphoned off from Bangladesh, through government channels to bank channels and so on, contracts were signed not for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of a family or family members and something like that. So those ugly things that you see when a government goes in the wrong direction, things happen, terrible things happen in the economy and so on."

On the question of Bangladesh's relations with India, which shared close ties with Hasina's administration, Yunus said Dhaka has no option but to maintain good ties with New Delhi.

"Bangladesh must have the best of relationship with India, out of its own necessity and out of its own acquaintances, and the similarity of the things that we do together. We share each other's history. So there is no escape route for Bangladesh to do something else," he said.

He pointed to bilateral problems over river water sharing and border crossings of people and said his administration will work together with New Delhi to resolve the issues. "We have to work together and there are international ways of solving that. We will follow that path and make a very happy solution."

He also briefly touched upon Dhaka's policy toward the Rohingya people. "The Rohingya are trickling in as trouble begins in Rakhine," he said, referring to the armed conflict in Myanmar's western province that shares a long border with Bangladesh.

"The Rohingya are trying to find a way to escape, that they're coming towards Bangladesh. We can't stop them, we can't push them back. Pushing them back means we are pushing them to death. I don't think any country can do that. So we welcome people who come, let them come in," he underlined.

However, he stressed that the situation is challenging for Bangladesh.

"It creates problem for us, problem for us, because we already have nearly a million Rohingyas living in the country, we don't know what is the future of that. Then on top of it, we have 200-300 people almost every day coming in. This number builds up very quickly, so this is an additional burden. So we are worried about it. We are trying to draw attention of the international community on how to handle this. We do not have a solution right now, but we kept the door open."

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