Hasina is out. Yunus is in. Here are the three biggest factors to watch in Bangladesh.

Ali Riaz

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The spectacular and rapid fall of Sheikh Hasina and her regime, followed by her ignominious exit from Bangladesh on August 5, is not only unprecedented in the history of the nation, which has previously experienced several, albeit less dramatic mass upsurges and downfalls of dictators in its turbulent history. It also surprised many Bangladesh watchers. The aura of invincibility that she and her party created over the past decade and a half crumbled in a matter of hours. A few weeks of demonstrations led by students and joined by people from all walks of life brought down the state’s administrative edifice. Moreover, the demonstrations did so despite the fact that the most lethal state apparatuses—the police, the Border Guard Bangladesh, the Rapid Action Battalion, and Awami League activists—were unleashed against the protesters with shoot-on-sight orders during the state-imposed curfew. The country, which was standing at the crossroads of closed autocracy and a democratic turnaround since the stage-managed election in January, suddenly watched a groundswell that appeared to be unthinkable even days ago.

Such dramatic developments have put the country in uncharted territory. Three aspects of the developing situation warrant attention.

What will the interim government look like?

On August 6, a day after Hasina fled Bangladesh, the country’s only Nobel Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, was selected to lead the interim government. His name was proposed by the student protesters, who have spearheaded the movement. The choice of Yunus is a clear testimony that unlike on previous occasions, when political parties, in consultation with the military and bureaucracy, decided who would head the government, a new political force is making the decision this time around. The students have emerged as the center of power, and will seek to exercise that power in the selection of the interim government’s cabinet.

It is notable that the appointment of Yunus is beyond the purview of the existing constitution. While the political actors and army leaders appear to be operating with the understanding that Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin is the chief executive, they seem to recognize that under the circumstances, all actions draw their legitimacy from the student-led movement.