The university students, who led last year’s anti-fascist mass uprising, will form a political party to protect their gains from the uprising, Prof Muhammad Yunus has said in an interview with the UK-based newspaper The Financial Times.
One of the possibilities in the emerging election-related politics is the students themselves will form a party, Yunus told Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times during a podcast. The interview was taken during Yunus’ recent visit to Davos, Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum.
The transcription of the interview was published online Thursday.
The young uprising leaders are campaigning and organising across the country to form their own party and prepare for the next general elections.
In response to a question about the upcoming national parliamentary elections in Bangladesh, Professor Yunus stated that the two possible timeframes he suggested for the elections were ideal. This is because he is focused on maintaining national unity and does not want to deviate from that goal.
Professor Yunus mentioned, "This is a good time because always I’m protecting the unity of the nation. I do not want to depart from that. One of the possibility is the student themselves will form a party. In the beginning when they are forming the cabinet, I took three of the student into my cabinet. I said, if they can give life for the country, they can sit in the cabinet and decide what is that they are giving life for. And they are doing good work. Now the students are saying, why don’t you form your our own political party, we’ll take a chance. And they said, you have no chance. You don’t even get one seat in the parliament. Why? Because nobody knows you.”
“I said the whole nation knows them. Let them take a chance, whatever they want to do. So they will do it," he added.
The students are not eager for political careers, but feel compelled to join politics, fearing that a repetition of abusive power structure will dash their hopes of building a “discrimination free Bangladesh,” Yunus told Gideon Rachman.
“They have not a touch of ill will or a personal desire to make a political career for themselves. They are joining or creating political party under the circumstances. This is needed because they have to protect the things they have earned by their blood. Otherwise, they will be taken away by all the people who are looking for opportunity to repeat the previous kind of administration and so on,” Yunus said.
He also uttered words of caution for those looking up to the students.
“Maybe in the process of forming party, they will fall apart. That’s also a danger because politics is getting in, all the politicians will penetrate into them. So we don’t know whether they can remove themselves from the politics that we have in the country. This is the kind of chance we have to take.”
“But the students are ready,” he said confidently.
Bd-pratidin English/Fariha Nowshin Chinika
