Muhammad Yunus Set to Lead Bangladesh Temporarily

Bangladesh is expected to swear in an interim administration on Thursday, days after its entrenched leader was toppled by protests and forced to flee, leaving the country in violent chaos and profound uncertainty.

The interim government’s high-profile leader, the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, was expected to arrive in the early afternoon from Paris, where he was a guest at the Olympics. He was scheduled to be sworn in along with more than a dozen other members of the interim administration late Thursday evening.

Mr. Yunus, a well-regarded pioneer of microfinance that extended small loans to women and the rural poor, faces the immediate and daunting task of restoring order to daily life and to the economy.

The toppled leader, Sheikh Hasina, had transformed a parliamentary government — something devised to easily weather leadership change — into a deeply centralized system in which she held all the power in a country of 170 million people. An escalating crackdown on protests, which went on until she boarded a plane to India, left about 400 people dead and, once she was gone, it resulted in a total collapse of government authority.

The police force, long accused of extensive abuses while keeping Ms. Hasina in power, has faced violent retribution since she left. Officers have vanished from the streets. The civil service is paralyzed. An already-stagnating economy is in tatters, with foreign reserves dwindling.

Mr. Yunus, 84, has said he sees his job as helping restore trust in the government, and that he has no political aspirations beyond helping in this transition period.

“Let us not let this slip away because of our mistakes,” Mr. Yunus said in a statement on Wednesday. “I fervently appeal to everybody to stay calm. Please refrain from all kinds of violence.”

The army chief, Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, said at a news conference late Wednesday that the military had extended its support to Mr. Yunus in restoring order. He said he had spoke to Mr. Yunus on the phone, and that he would receive him at the airport when he landed.

The army chief blamed much of the chaos on the disappearance of the police from the streets. He said new leadership had been appointed for the police force, and that he hoped they would be back to their regular duties soon.