Bangladesh’s leading newspaper, The Daily Star has in an unsigned article reminded the chief adviser to the interim government Mohammad Yunus, a captain cannot abandon ship, when the sea is turbulent and suggested he should reshuffle the existing cabinet to deliver selected time-bound goals.

“We plea, that Prof Yunus remains the man of the hour and cannot and should not abandon the nation at this stage. He has to lead us to the election and power transfer to an elected government. We are willing to accept the blame that may be the media and the people have failed to fully appreciate what Prof Yunus has achieved in the last 10 months,” the note, published on Saturday, said.

The appeal from the Dhaka-based daily comes days after Yunus expressed a desire to quit amid pressure from the political parties and the Bangladesh people for national elections.

“This is not the time to pass any judgement on Yunus’ government but suffice it to say that 10 months is not a short time for a government whose very name ‘interim’ suggests the transitory nature of its tenure,” the newspaper observed.

The newspaper also said some of Yunus’ advisors got too used to power.

“He chose an inexperienced team and did not run it like a hands-on commander. Crucially, some of his advisers got too used to power and started focusing on extending its tenure rather than finishing the task in hand,” The Daily Star said.

Since the interim government was sworn-in with its focus on reforms, The Daily Star said both carrying out reforms and elections by December 2025 were achievable targets.

Over the last few months the interim government and the major political parties have reached a level of consensus on the independence of judiciary, bicameral legislature, reconfiguration of the powers of the Prime Minister and the President, among others.

But on reforms for women, the interim government has run into trouble with the religious hardliners.

Since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government last August, Bangladesh is being run by an interim government with the Nobel laureate Yunus as the chief adviser.

The departure of Hasina, following a movement that was launched by students, catapulted into a mass movement. But it has hardly been the gamechanger for the neighbouring country. Over the last few months Bangladesh has been reeling under an employment crisis, stock market crash and a general lawlessness.

“He must equally be open to admit that his government has indeed made some serious mistakes. He has to recognize that Bangladesh, in recent months, appears more and more like a country without law and order, where street demonstrations and obstructions of traffic for a few days are the way to get your demand whether justified or otherwise, where business people are suffering from lack of confidence and that hardly much investment has occurred in spite of the showmanship of an engaging presenter,” the article read.

On Saturday, Yunus is likely to hold meetings with the political parties including the BNP to discuss the future course.

The BNP has stepped the ante on the Yunus administration for alleged deliberate delay in holding the national polls. Bangladesh’s Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman too recently called for holding polls by end of 2025.

The Daily Star recognised the fact that Yunus’ academic achievements and pioneering work in the field of economics, had not prepared him to lead a government.

“Normally running a government is difficult. Running the government of a country like Bangladesh is even more so and running it after dismantling a government that destroyed literally every institution of governance – parliament, judiciary, police, bureaucracy, intelligence agencies etc – is absurdly difficult,” The Daily Star wrote. “It is at that moment Prof Yunus answered the call of the students, which in effect, represented the call of the whole nation.”

Yunus, the daily said, should have set his terms to the band of students who had appealed to him last August.

“He should have demanded that while he would serve the “new generation” --- they are not all-knowing and all-wise as they later started to be – and that they will also have to listen to him,” The Daily Star said.

The Daily Star note ended with a suggestion that Yunus should hold immediate talks with the heads of defence forces, engage with the political parties over the election dates and reshuffle the existing cabinet to deliver selected time-bound goals.