Under pressure to hold polls by december, bangladesh's yunus meets bnp, jamaat amid threat to caretaker setup

DHAKA: Bangladesh's interim leader, who took over after a mass uprising last year, will meet powerful parties pressuring his government later on Saturday, days after he reportedly

threatened to quit. Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads the caretaker government as its chief adviser until elections are held, has called for rival political

parties jostling for power to give him their full support. His press secretary Shafiqul Alam confirmed Yunus would meet leaders of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), as well as

leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation's largest Islamist party. "He is meeting BNP and Jamaat leaders this evening," Alam told AFP. No agenda for the talks

has been released. But the BNP, seen as the front-runners in elections, are pushing heavily for polls to be held by December. They would be the first elections since a student-led revolt

forced then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee in August 2024. Microfinance pioneer Yunus, who has led the country after returning from exile at the behest of protesters, says he has a

duty to implement democratic reforms before elections. Yunus has said polls could be held as early as December, but that holding them later -- with a deadline of June -- would give more time

for those changes.