Delayed Polls, Secret Doha Talks: Yunus Wants To Keep Power At Any Cost
The Nobel laureate today stands like a moral pauper, begging for more time to transfer power, surrendering governance to jihadis, and trying to make wily deals in the backroom
'Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
American politician Robert G Ingersoll's 1883 quote about Abraham Lincoln today perfectly fits a man of much-smaller stature, Bangladesh's chief advisor to the caretaker government, Muhammad Yunus.
Not only has he struck a Faustian deal with groups like Jamaat-i-Islami and Hizbut Tahrir, released from jail hardened terrorists and Islamists, and presided over the massacre of opponents and minorities, he is now willing to do anything to indefinitely delay elections and stay on in power.
The Nobel laureate today stands like a moral pauper, begging for more time to transfer power, surrendering governance to jihadis, and trying to make wily deals in the backroom. Yunus is even willing to compromise Bangladesh's security and sovereignty by offering the American Deep State the Chittagong corridor.
Dhaka is thick with rumours that the newly appointed and controversial NSA to the Yunus government, Khalil-ur Rahman, secretly met Tracey Ann Jacobson, chargé d'affaires at the Bangladesh US embassy, at the Sheraton, Doha. Right after, on Thursday, the Americans apparently also met in Qatar the Emir of Jamaat, Shafiqur Rahman. The meetings were about handing over to the US the Chittagong corridor, which leads to the Rakhine province.
Yunus's grand play involves bringing together the Jamaat and students'-led NCP, stalling elections, and keeping the BNP (and the besieged Awami League) out of power.
To that end, he has announced elections in April 2026, pushing it back from the previously discussed December 2025. Bangladesh observers say the new April date could also be a hogwash because it coincides with the Islamic holy month of Ramzan, which gives Yunus an excuse to further delay or freeze it.
It will become increasingly difficult for the Yunus government to continue enjoying power without electoral accountability. The Jamaat and other Islamist groups plan to extract a much bigger price by infiltrating every institution and Islamise full-scale in the name of reforms.
Never mind it is politically, constitutionally, and ethically fraught for an unelected interim government to implement major constitutional reforms without democratic legitimacy. Only such no-holds-barred tampering with the Constitution can keep Yunus in power or bring in the Islamist-backed student party NCP without holding free-and-fair elections.
But the Bangladesh Army leadership and the major political parties have smelled trouble. The BNP is likely to launch a mass agitation soon against the Yunus government's unaccountable self-extensions. The courts may also spoil the party for Yunus and his newfound band of jihadi boys. Bangladesh is staring at a fiery summer and a turbulent monsoon.
Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
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