What Dr Yunus Got Right, and What He Didn't

That Dr. Muhammad Yunus was dealt a nearly unwinnable hand when he assumed stewardship of a quasi-constitutional interim administration after the 2024 mass uprising remains true. His Advisory Council inherited a state machinery that was de facto non-existent and therefore non-functional.

Add to this: Bangladesh’s macroeconomic health was in acute distress. The public policy tools and enforcement instruments required for state repair, which in practice sit within the purview of public institutions, could be neither mobilized quickly nor effectively because the institutions themselves had collapsed under the now-deposed Awami League regime.

A traumatized citizenry also confronted an unprecedented reality: a significant plurality of the state apparatus, including law enforcement personnel, parliamentarians, civil servants, local government officials, and even the head of the National Mosque, fled or went into hiding after finding themselves on the wrong side of history.

For the outgoing Chief Adviser, those circumstances defined ground zero. That backdrop is indispensable to any fair assessment of Dr. Yunus’ performance over the past 18 months.

Dr. Yunus’ authority was derived from multiple centres of power. First, popular will expressed through the student-led mass uprising, represented by the student leaders who drove frontline mobilization against Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian government. Second, the two major anti–Awami League political parties, namely the BNP and Jamaat. Third, the armed forces.

With an overarching mandate from these three centres of power, the Chief Adviser publicly committed his government to three strategic priorities: constitutional reforms, justice for victims of mass atrocity crimes committed by the Awami League regime, and a credible election.

The upcoming election remains the test that will define his legacy in government. Preparations look reasonable, if not flawless. Barring major surprises, Bangladesh seems eager to choose its next government, and Dr. Yunus seems equally eager to hand over power to an elected Prime Minister and step away from a job that has likely been the toughest of his long, illustrious life.

Credibility will be the deciding measure: high voter participation, orderly electoral administration from the opening of polling booths through the announcement of results, and limited to no media reports of election engineering or manipulation by any stakeholder.

Those benchmarks will determine whether he fulfils the fundamental mandate of delivering an acceptable election that Bangladesh has been denied for 15 years.

Reform

The Yunus government’s efforts on constitutional reform have been substantive but procedurally faulty. The consultation process that moved Bangladesh from policy discourse to the drafting of the July Charter was not inclusive to the extent required.

The Charter was developed primarily through negotiations among political parties, while civil society organizations, professional associations, labour groups, and ordinary citizens had limited opportunities to influence the content of the final draft.

Representation gaps were also considerable. Women and marginalized groups were almost entirely absent from the National Consensus Commission’s deliberations. Despite the stakes, voters have also been handed a referendum question so technically dense that it risks obscuring what, precisely, they are being asked to approve.

Even so, something rare did occur. The reports produced by the various reform commissions were, by and large, sound. Many have since been sidelined for reasons that remain unclear to the public.

Some recommendations have been quietly adopted on paper, and many of the most consequential proposals still made it onto the National Consensus Commission’s agenda. Under that umbrella, the parties most likely to form future governments and oppositions in Parliament debated contested questions in detail and ultimately converged on a shared package of reforms.

Bangladesh has not seen that level of negotiated settlement in decades. The achievement of getting political stakeholders to the table and securing their participation in a consensus-building exercise deserves appreciation, not because the process was perfect, but because it compelled rival political forces to bargain, compromise, and meet one another in the open.

In that sense, it stands out as one of the more democratic exercises the country has witnessed in recent memory, and it earns Dr. Yunus a respectable grade on his government’s reform efforts.

Justice

The justice agenda has moved forward, but with visible shortcomings, reflected most clearly in the frustration of victims’ families and loved ones. Judicial proceedings to try perpetrators of mass atrocity crimes have begun, and Hasina and her close associates received sentences during the interim government’s tenure.

Whether due process was followed, however, remains an open question, and criticism on that front has been legitimate, including from international human rights bodies such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Judicial reform has also produced a tangible achievement: the creation of a separate secretariat for the judiciary.

The broader justice system, however, still bears the familiar marks of Bangladesh’s past, with entrenched habits and incentives that the interim government has neither shown the will nor demonstrated the capacity to dislodge: cases that name several hundred accused at once, bulk-filing practices, charges against individuals with no apparent link to the underlying crime, pretrial detention without bail even for bailable offences, arrests followed by warrants rather than warrants preceding arrests, and patterns that read more like political revenge than justice by the book.

On balance, the interim government’s record on facilitating justice sits somewhere between a pass and a fail. The bigger-picture question, though, extends beyond what the interim government did or did not do on specific files: how Dr. Yunus performed as a leader under pressure, in public, and in making the calls that only he could make.

Five Failures

On that front, five failures stand out.

First, he failed at expectation management. Dr. Yunus tends to communicate in century-scale horizons and reach for language that can feel utopian and detached from everyday realities. That instinct has long made him compelling to global audiences, and public communication has always been one of his strengths.

Bangladesh, however, needed less of a thought leader and more of a practical statesman: someone who spoke plainly about the government’s challenges, set realistic targets, and measured success in deliverables rather than slogans. Promises of the greatest election in history, for example, set a bar that seems unrealistic, for reasons within and beyond his control.

Expectations also rose around the role of student leaders in government. His impulse to empower young people is certainly admirable, but assigning student leaders key ministerial files for an extended period, despite their lack of experience overseeing the administration of any large public or private organisation, ultimately left both the government and the students worse off.

The arrangement also created the impression that the state was, in effect, underwriting the formation of the NCP. Over time, the gap between Dr. Yunus’ rhetoric and the reality Bangladesh experienced weakened the authority of his words, historically his most powerful asset.

Second, he underinvested in media engagement. He appointed Shafiqul Alam as his Press Secretary, a veteran Associated Press journalist who introduced a White House–style press-wing communications model to the interim government’s dealings with the media. The approach produced mixed results.

A hopeful, charismatic Dr. Yunus began his tenure with three high-profile, face-to-face interviews with editors of The Daily Star, Prothom Alo, and New Age, and he also spoke with international outlets. Over time, however, he did not make a habit of facing the local media through regular press conferences and routine, on-the-record interviews. He became less visible.

In a volatile political transition, silence tends to invite speculation and media spin. Regular engagement would have imposed discipline on the government’s messaging and given him a direct channel to correct misconceptions quickly, on the record, and from a position of strength.

Instead, communication ran through reactive social media updates and spokesperson-led statements. The end result was a thinner public record, less reliable information from the government, and weaker accountability from the head of government.

Third, he paid no attention to conflict-of-interest management. The rapid withdrawal of cases against him soon after he came to power, even recognizing that those cases were pursued in bad faith by the previous government, created a preventable optics problem.

Government decisions that appeared to advantage Grameen-affiliated institutions and other entities associated with Dr. Yunus made that problem worse. So did his decision to use the Chief Adviser’s office to promote his Three Zeros agenda, however well-intentioned the vision. Doing so blurred the boundary between the government’s agenda and his own.

As head of an interim administration, he should have ensured the government stepped back from any decisions tied to Grameen and deferred any decisions directly connected to him to a later elected government.

Instead, the path the interim government took invited a simple interpretation: Hasina exited, Yunus entered, and decisions by the new state machinery favoured Dr. Yunus personally. That interpretation dented public confidence in the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Fourth, Dr. Yunus fell short on transparency. Most noticeably, he chose not to publish the wealth statements of members of his Advisory Council, including his own, a routine practice in liberal democracies.

That choice was unfortunate because it could have set a baseline for future governments. Bangladesh still does not know what those statements contain, and the refusal to publish them raises natural questions about the Chief Adviser’s reasons for keeping them private.

Fifth, Dr. Yunus at best did not confront the rise of Islamist extremism and at worst pandered to it. His silence read as accommodation of the anti-woman activity that accompanied it.

A good example was the government’s failure to mount a coherent defence of the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission’s report, its members, and its recommendations. Islamist groups openly denounced the report and mobilized against the Commission, yet the government’s response remained timid. The episode became a glaring example of why this administration is described as a weak government, or a government that does not govern.

The report was sidelined amid fear, political sensitivity, and hostile pressure from Islamist forces, not through a single decision attributable to Dr. Yunus alone. Even so, the episode exposed a pattern.

On one hand, Dr. Yunus projected support for women and girls through photo opportunities with the Commission’s members and by associating himself with symbols of female empowerment, including ceremonies celebrating the Bangladesh girls’ football team.

On the other hand, he did not match that symbolism with consistent political backing or a clear public stance against the misogyny, threats, and harassment that spread online and in the public realm against women and girls from right-wing Islamist sources.

As Islamist activity intensified, it contributed to a breakdown in law and order that negatively affected public safety well beyond gender-related incidents. Attacks targeting progressive or secular establishments, including The Daily Star and Prothom Alo, also occurred, and the Yunus government did not respond with the firmness the moment required.

Beyond sporadic statements, the government did not follow through with the vigorous application of the full force of the law against religiously framed or politically motivated intimidation, vigilantism, and, yes, anti-woman activity, whether online or in the public realm.

Mob violence became a recurring feature after August 2024. Dr. Yunus cannot absolve himself of responsibility for the lack of leadership on this front.

On women’s issues, the disappointment carried greater weight because of his own biography. His life’s work has centred on empowering rural women, and he has long been seen as progressive in every sense of the word. That record made his hesitation to rein in anti-woman rhetoric and broader mob activity feel especially jarring, leaving many frustrated and upset.

Bangladesh may be facing a reality check. Many ordinary citizens still see Dr. Yunus as a decent man with good intentions. A closer look, however, suggests the Chief Adviser has been more attentive to safeguarding his international standing and personal reputation than to confronting the domestic backlash to decisions he made and decisions he declined to make inside Bangladesh.

Abroad, his brand has largely held among his strongest backers, including Western liberal democracies, the United Nations ecosystem, and major institutional players such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

At home, his popularity has receded over the past 18 months, though enough goodwill remains to suggest the public still has a soft spot for him.

The public understood the chaos he inherited and gave him time, extending patience and, more often than not, the benefit of the doubt.

Most recognized that he was not the only player at the centre of decision-making, and that his hands were often tied: first, by the constraints of governing without prior experience in governance, and second, by reliance on a civil service that has been allergic to reform and, more accurately, a barrier to it. 

The five failures outlined above have narrowed the space for generosity and, as his tenure comes to an end, speak more directly to his leadership and judgment.

Zooming back to August 2024, the logic behind inviting Dr. Yunus to lead an interim administration was rooted in necessity: he was the only Bangladeshi with the cross-societal acceptability to serve as a balm for a country reeling from state-sponsored violence, and to act as a national guardian as the country moved through a complex political vacuum.

Bangladesh needed him then. He was the right person for that moment. In the immediate aftermath of the mass uprising, the risk of large-scale civil conflict was real, and his presence at the top helped ensure that conflict did not materialize. For that, he deserves credit.

Internationally, his long-standing reputation as a champion for Bangladesh on the global stage also served a stabilizing function. It prevented the Indian government, in particular, from successfully promoting the narrative that Hasina was ousted by an Islamist-led, military-supported coup rather than by a mass uprising triggered by atrocities committed by her regime: one that drew extraordinary participation from people across classes, faiths, and political beliefs.

Dr. Yunus helped anchor a framing that has largely prevailed in global discourse, aside from Indian media, with the caveat, increasingly noted internationally, that a section of Bangladeshi society has been shifting toward the country’s version of the political right.

In this account, Bangladesh is moving through a messy but necessary political transition away from authoritarianism and toward what, hopefully, will be a functioning multi-party parliamentary democracy, and yes, a pluralistic and liberal one.

Protecting that narrative was critical then, and it remains critical now for two reasons: first, the country’s sovereignty, and second, its national security.

Fast forward to today: Bangladesh has learned a lesson. Being educated, having a global stature, and even winning a Nobel Peace Prize does not automatically translate into having the skills that political governance demands. Disappointment in Dr. Yunus has accumulated, including among people who still consider him a national asset and someone worth admiring.

That disappointment should not erase the interim government’s achievements. Foremost among them is this: Bangladesh did not descend into total anarchy. The economy was pulled back, at least somewhat, from the brink and remains functional. Large-scale bloodshed also did not occur on the scale many feared after August 2024.

One achievement deserves more recognition than it gets: space has reopened for open, even harsh, criticism of the head of government, and Bangladeshis can speak and critique in ways that would have been unthinkable under the previous regime.

That freer, more chaotic information ecosystem comes with problems of its own, including disinformation, misinformation, propaganda, hate speech, and intimidation that have thrived without institutional guardrails. State-led censorship, however, has largely been absent under Dr. Yunus’ watch, and he deserves credit for that.

That said, a damaging pattern has also taken hold: dissenting voices are too easily cast, often by citizens rather than Dr. Yunus or his colleagues, as enemies of the post–August 2024 order or stooges of the Awami League. The arrests of several journalists on dubious charges remain a serious problem for Bangladesh’s effort to protect civil liberties for all citizens.

The final verdict on Dr. Yunus’ tenure will turn on one test above all: whether Bangladesh holds a credible election and witnesses a peaceful transfer of power to an elected government. If his interim administration can see that process through, history will likely be kind to him.

No honest assessment should reduce an entire life’s work to 18 months. Moments of national stress, however, recalibrate reputations. Performance is measured against the scale of the crisis and the expectations placed on the individual.

One point bears remembering: even the world’s best doctor would struggle to fix a broken road. Bangladesh asked someone with no political experience to stabilize a country that is exceptionally difficult to govern, and he struggled materially.

Bottom line: taking everything into account, a credible election would justify a passing grade for Dr. Yunus as the head of the interim government, with the final score padded by grace marks.

Mir Aftabuddin Ahmed is a Canada-based Public Policy Columnist with more than 140 published articles across Bangladeshi and Canadian media and policy outlets. He currently serves as a Policy Development Officer with the City of Toronto. He can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed are his own.