Bangladesh president dissolves parliament, frees former PM
Bangladesh’s president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, paving the way for the formation of an interim government, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following a violent crackdown on a student-led uprising.
A statement from President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s office also said that Hasina’s arch-rival, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister, had been freed from house arrest.
Student protesters had threatened more demonstrations if parliament was not dissolved. The decision was taken following meetings with the heads of defence forces, leaders of political parties, student leaders and some civil society representatives, the presidential statement said.
The unrest began last month in the form of protests against civil service job quotas and then escalated into wider calls for Hasina to stand down.
Hasina, 76, had been in power since 2009 but was accused of rigging elections in January and then watched millions of people take to the streets over the past month demanding she step down.
More than 400 people died as security forces sought to quell the unrest, but the protests grew and Hasina finally fled Bangladesh aboard a helicopter on Monday as the military turned against her.
Hasina’s flight ended her 15-year second stint in power. She had ruled the country for 20 of the last 30 years, having inherited the political movement of her father, state founder Mujubur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1975.
Bangladesh’s army chief General Wakeruz Zaman was due to meet student leaders to discuss the formation of an interim government that is expected to hold elections soon after it takes over.
Nahid Islam, one of the key organisers of the movement against Hasina, said in a video on Facebook with two other student leaders that parliament should be dissolved by 3pm (9am GMT) on Tuesday and asked “revolutionary students to be ready” if that did not happen.
It was not immediately clear if the meeting had taken place and if the students’ deadline to dissolve parliament came after the meeting.