Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Bangladesh, the South Asian country that's home to nearly one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy million people, has a new government.
Speaker 3: This Bangladesh has been reborn. Our resolve is to see
Speaker 3: it move ahead at a very rapid pace. That is
Speaker 3: what we want to protect.
Speaker 2: After weeks of protests that led to some four hundred deaths,
Speaker 2: Prime Minister Sheik Hasina was forced to step down and
Speaker 2: flee the country, putting an abrupt end to her fifteen
Speaker 2: years in power.
Speaker 3: That this is not just.
Speaker 2: The end of the Titan shake Asina.
Speaker 3: With this, we put an end to the mafia state
Speaker 3: that she hastrated.
Speaker 2: In a startling turn of events, Nobel Prize winning economist
Speaker 2: Mohammed Unis stepped into the leadership vacuum. Yes, the same
Speaker 2: Mohammed Unis who we reported just last month was facing
Speaker 2: nearly two hundred criminal charges that his supporters believed were
Speaker 2: politically motivated. Earlier, Yunis told Bloomberg that he didn't have
Speaker 2: political aspirations, but after Hassina's departure, he was chosen to
Speaker 2: be the chief advisor of the interim government.
Speaker 3: We must protect this freedom and not only protect it,
Speaker 3: but take the fruits of this freedom to every household.
Speaker 3: Otherwise this freedom has no value.
Speaker 2: What happens next in Bangladesh is being closely watched by
Speaker 2: international investors who've come to see the country as a
Speaker 2: potential rising economy.
Speaker 1: Bangladesh, when it was inaugurated as a nation as an
Speaker 1: independent nation in the nineteen seventies, was something like the
Speaker 1: second poorest country on Earth. Now it's a lower middle
Speaker 1: income economy, so it seemed as a fairly robust success
Speaker 1: story in the region. And I think that that reputation
Speaker 1: is what's at stake.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg reporter Kai Schultz has been closely covering the events
Speaker 2: in Bangladesh over the last few months, and he says
Speaker 2: one thing Muhammad Unis's interim government will need to do
Speaker 2: is to shore up confidence in the country.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Unice and his interim government
Speaker 1: will want to do is just ensure the international community
Speaker 1: that this is still a place to park their money,
Speaker 1: that it's a country that still has a very positive trajectory.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
Speaker 2: wanh today on the show how student protesters toppled a
Speaker 2: fifteen year rule in Bangladesh and what's next for Bangladesh's economy. Kai,
Speaker 2: we spoke last month about the celebrated economist Muhammad Yunis,
Speaker 2: whom you met earlier this year in Bangladesh. He was
Speaker 2: then fighting very serious criminal charges that his supporters believed
Speaker 2: were being driven by former Prime Minister Shai Casina, And
Speaker 2: now weeks later, we have such a dramatic turn. Hassina's
Speaker 2: resigned abruptly and has fled the country, while Unice is
Speaker 2: now in charge of an interim government. Did anyone see
Speaker 2: this coming?
Speaker 1: Nobody saw this coming. It's been a complete shock. It's
Speaker 1: wild that Unice is the leader of the interim government,
Speaker 1: precisely because he was such a target of Hassina's administration,
Speaker 1: or at least it was perceived that way by him
Speaker 1: in his camp. He faced life imprisonment and now he's
Speaker 1: ruling over a massive country and many now are hoping
Speaker 1: that this ushers in a new era for the country,
Speaker 1: but with so much uncertainty, it's hard to say.
Speaker 2: Okay. So take us back to the protests in July
Speaker 2: that led to the Prime Minister's ouster. What got people
Speaker 2: to the streets.
Speaker 1: The protests started with fairly narrow to points. Mostly they
Speaker 1: were on the streets contesting a law that preserves government
Speaker 1: jobs for specific groups.
Speaker 2: So wait, why did protesters care so much about these jobs?
Speaker 1: So under the quota system, about thirty percent of jobs
Speaker 1: were reserved for the families of veterans who fought in
Speaker 1: Bangladesh's War of independence. Hasina's party, the Iwami League, was
Speaker 1: instrumental at that time in pushing for Bangladesh to become
Speaker 1: an independent nation. So many students felt like this system
Speaker 1: favored loyalists of hers. And Bangladesh's economy has lately slowed,
Speaker 1: there's still a sense, particularly among young people, that quality
Speaker 1: jobs are in short supply. So the protest movement was
Speaker 1: largely led by students, at least initially.
Speaker 2: And how did the then prime minister has seen it
Speaker 2: react to the protests and criticism.
Speaker 1: Sure, Hassina reacted with force in those early days.
Speaker 4: The army has now been deployed in the country's capital
Speaker 4: to enforce a strict curfew with a shoot on site order.
Speaker 1: And the way they cracked down was by deputizing the police. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the army shutting down communication so that people couldn't as
Speaker 1: easily organize.
Speaker 4: With the government imposing a nationwide internet blackout. The US
Speaker 4: embasc and a statement saying reports indicate hundreds have been injured,
Speaker 4: adding the situation is extremely volatile.
Speaker 1: For several days, WhatsApp was basically unusable, so internet services,
Speaker 1: phone communications, all of that was cut, and the protests
Speaker 1: became very violent. According to figures that we have, which
Speaker 1: are pulled from a variety of sources, including hospitals, several
Speaker 1: hundred people were killed, perhaps more than four hundred.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you've got Prime Minister ship Casina. She's been
Speaker 2: ruling Bangladesh with an ironclad fist and took a really
Speaker 2: strong stance against these protests, forcefully suppressed the demonstrations, and
Speaker 2: then weeks after she's basically resigned abruptly fled the country.
Speaker 2: What was a turning point here?
Speaker 1: So at one point, several days into the protests, Hassina's
Speaker 1: administration made a concession. The veterans quota was cut to
Speaker 1: five percent, and that seemed to quell a lot of
Speaker 1: the anger. The protests died down, but soon after, and
Speaker 1: it's unclear exactly why this occurred, the protesters returned, and
Speaker 1: when they returned, they wanted her to resign. And we
Speaker 1: think that part of the reason that these persisted was
Speaker 1: because by that point a few hundred people had already
Speaker 1: been killed, and Bangladeshi's were so tired of living in
Speaker 1: a country that they felt did not have a justice
Speaker 1: system that favored them, but had a justice system that
Speaker 1: favored the elite, and their agenda narrowed to a single
Speaker 1: bullet point, which was effectively to push her out. The
Speaker 1: streets of Dhaka were at their bloodiest. I think the
Speaker 1: day before she resigned, something like one hundred people alone
Speaker 1: were killed. And that's really the moment when a lot
Speaker 1: of security personnel felt like they could no longer protect
Speaker 1: Shei Casina and they could no longer stand behind her administration.
Speaker 2: So Hassina resigns and Mohammed Yunis, the Nobel Prize winning economist,
Speaker 2: steps in to lead the interim government at Bangladesh, backed
Speaker 2: by the military. What happens next here.
Speaker 1: What happens next is the interim government will start to
Speaker 1: put together an agenda to rebuild Bangladesh to take the
Speaker 1: country forward. Right now, ideally elections would be held within
Speaker 1: three or so months. I think it's a ninety day period.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of moving pieces at the moment,
Speaker 1: herself may come back to Bangladesh and contest elections. But
Speaker 1: it could be a situation where they're held in three months,
Speaker 1: it could be a situation where they're held in two years.
Speaker 1: We really don't know.
Speaker 2: I imagine that the next few weeks will be really important
Speaker 2: to re establish in a security for Bangladesh. What are
Speaker 2: the most important things that UNICE and the military need
Speaker 2: to do to get daily life in Bangladesh, you know,
Speaker 2: running smoothly again right now?
Speaker 1: A lot of services simply aren't working, so the police
Speaker 1: were on strike. Many businesses are still shuttered. They're worried
Speaker 1: about arsonists, about looters. After Shai Casina left, after she
Speaker 1: fled to India, the protests continued in some sort of spirit,
Speaker 1: and in many parts of the country they continued to
Speaker 1: be violent. So we've encountered reports of minority Hindus being attacked.
Speaker 1: There's a sense that if Bangladesh doesn't get a hold
Speaker 1: of the security situation, it could be another Pakistan in
Speaker 1: the sense that it could be a place that harbors
Speaker 1: Esamist extremists. And so I think that that will be
Speaker 1: top of the agenda in the immediate month for Unis
Speaker 1: and for the military establishing some sense of security at
Speaker 1: least in the capital and the bigger cities in Bangladesh.
Speaker 2: And what are the risks here to Bangladesh's economy. It
Speaker 2: is the second largest garment exporter next to China.
Speaker 1: The garment exports industry has been disrupted, of course by
Speaker 1: the protests by curfews, so a number of factories have
Speaker 1: temporarily shuddered as these protests became very intense. Much of
Speaker 1: the industry is centralized around Dhaka, the capital where many
Speaker 1: of the protests were held, so there's been a bit
Speaker 1: of a spillover effect. Foreign direct investment has been falling
Speaker 1: pretty rapidly in Bangladesh for a few years. The desk
Speaker 1: suffered immensely from the pandemic and supply chain disruptions. Blangladesh
Speaker 1: Banks governor recently resigned. There's been enormous shakeup in the
Speaker 1: finance ministry, which is creating quite a bit of turbulence,
Speaker 1: at least in the present moment.
Speaker 2: After the break, Bangladesh heads into an uncertain future with
Speaker 2: a reluctant leader. What does Muhammad Unis have planned for
Speaker 2: Bangladesh now that he's in charge kai This is a
Speaker 2: very dramatic turn of events in Bangladesh. When you visited
Speaker 2: Muhammad Unis earlier this year at his home in dot Com,
Speaker 2: he was facing a very different future. How did he
Speaker 2: go from facing life in prison to leading the country.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know exactly why he was chosen. He
Speaker 1: was the person that student protesters wanted to lead this
Speaker 1: interim government. He's an intellectual, He's someone who is mostly apolitical,
Speaker 1: and I think that a lot of Bangladeshi's gravitate towards
Speaker 1: that they're tired of the same leaders with the same agendas,
Speaker 1: constantly fighting each other, and Professor Unis offers something different
Speaker 1: in that sense. But it's absolutely crazy that he is
Speaker 1: now completely out of the legal entanglements, at least for
Speaker 1: the time being that he previously faced. The charges against
Speaker 1: him have been dropped. He was once a chief threat
Speaker 1: to Hassina, at least in the eyes of many people
Speaker 1: who are close to her, and he's now in her seat.
Speaker 2: So one thing I wanted to touch upon is there
Speaker 2: is a bit of jeja vu here, right, this is
Speaker 2: not the first time that Yunis stepped into politics under
Speaker 2: turbulent circumstances.
Speaker 1: That's right, He briefly entered politics in two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven when Hassina was in jail, and she saw that
Speaker 1: as betrayal of sorts. He quickly stepped out. He realized
Speaker 1: that it was not for him, and he's insisted, including
Speaker 1: the interviews that I've conducted with him earlier this year,
Speaker 1: that he has no interest in politics.
Speaker 3: I said, look, I'm not a politicians.
Speaker 1: This is a lot of thing I will never do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was a conversation you had with him
Speaker 2: just earlier this year. What did you take away from
Speaker 2: that conversation.
Speaker 1: I took away that this is someone who's very dedicated
Speaker 1: to poverty alleviation. He did not strike me as someone
Speaker 1: who had political ambitions. It did not feel like that
Speaker 1: was just something he was saying to get Hassina off
Speaker 1: his back. My sense now is the student protesters asked
Speaker 1: him to be the interim head. That's something we do
Speaker 1: know as a fact. Whether he wanted to do it
Speaker 1: or whether he felt pressure to do it because the
Speaker 1: situation in Bangladesh was so unstable is still an open question.
Speaker 1: I think we'll have more clarity in the coming days,
Speaker 1: but for now, it's certainly a bit of an about face,
Speaker 1: and we'll see whether this is just a temporary step
Speaker 1: into the political arena or whether he might himself contest
Speaker 1: elections when they are held.
Speaker 2: And how do you think this turbulent episode has changed
Speaker 2: how the world looks at Bangladesh.
Speaker 1: I think that there's been an impression, at least within governments,
Speaker 1: that Bangladesh has slid toward a more authoritarian model. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's still one of the few
Speaker 1: Muslim democracies in the world. It's a country of contradictory elements.
Speaker 1: Shee Casina was one of Asia's longest serving leaders. She
Speaker 1: presided over a pretty secularized nation, a place where religious
Speaker 1: minorities could worship in peace. So there's a sense that
Speaker 1: Bangadesh was a special nation is a special nation, that
Speaker 1: it's a place that's made enormous strides to improve its
Speaker 1: economy and to move up the value chain. But I
Speaker 1: think with these latest protests there's much darker impression that
Speaker 1: the country could become far less stable, and so there's
Speaker 1: a lot less optimism, at least at the moment.
Speaker 2: So when will we actually have a sense of what
Speaker 2: the future looks like for Bangladesh?
Speaker 1: Right now? Unice's interim government has focused most of their
Speaker 1: rhetoric on restoring peace to the streets. Once we have
Speaker 1: a better sense for their actual agenda, I think we'll
Speaker 1: have more clarity on number one, how long the interim
Speaker 1: government could be in place and how long it may
Speaker 1: take for elections to be held. And number two, whether
Speaker 1: the two traditional parties in Bangladesh, the Iwami League and
Speaker 1: the B and P the are likely to be the
Speaker 1: powerbrokers in the future, or whether units could be starting
Speaker 1: a new movement for the country in a new political agenda.
Speaker 1: Really for Bangladesh, but for now it's a watch and
Speaker 1: see situation.
Speaker 2: This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Young Young Naomi, Jessica Beck
Speaker 2: and Alex Zuguiera, who also mixed it. It was fact
Speaker 2: checked by Thomas Slut and edited by Caitlin Kenny. Special
Speaker 2: thanks to Andy Mukherjee. Our senior producers are Niamishaven and
Speaker 2: Kim gettlsen. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole Beemster
Speaker 2: Bower is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's
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