Photo: Collected
Bangladesh has turned into a "one-party" state as the ruling party stamps out political competition, Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus said in an interview.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won an election in January in a fourth straight term though the election was boycotted by the main opposition party, whose top leaders were either jailed or in exile ahead of the poll.
Yunus angered Hasina with a 2007 plan to set up a political party. The 2006 Nobel laureate who helped to lift millions from poverty by providing tiny loans of sums less than $100 to the rural poor, accused Hasina's ruling Awami League party of being involved in rampant corruption, saying Bangladesh lacked a genuine political opposition.
"Bangladesh doesn't have any politics left," Yunus, 83, said last week in his office in Dhaka, the capital. "There's only one party which is active and occupies everything, does everything, gets to the elections in their way."
He added, "They get their people elected in many different forms - proper candidates, dummy candidates, independent candidates - but all from the same party."
Messenger/Mumu
