Dhaka [Bangladesh], December 12: Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin said he plans to step down midway through his term.
This is after February's parliamentary election, telling Reuters he has felt humiliated by the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.
As head of state, Shahabuddin is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but the role is largely ceremonial, and executive power rests with the prime minister and cabinet of the mainly Muslim country of 173 million people.
However, his position gained prominence when a student-led uprising forced long-time premier Sheikh Hasina to flee to New Delhi in August 2024, leaving him as the last remaining constitutional authority after parliament was dissolved.
Shahabuddin, 75, had been elected unopposed for a five-year term in 2023 as a nominee of Hasina's Awami League party, which has been barred from contesting the February 12 election.
"I am keen to leave. I am interested to go out," he said in a WhatsApp interview from his official residence in Dhaka, in what he said was his first media interview since taking office.
"Until elections are held, I should continue," Shahabuddin said. "I am upholding my position because of the constitutionally held presidency."
He later said that despite his personal desire to resign, he would let the next government decide his future.
"If they tell me they plan to choose their own president, I will step aside," he said late on Thursday.
Opinion polls suggest the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former prime minister Khaleda Zia and the hardline Jamaat-e-Islami will be the frontrunners to form the next government. They were part of a coalition that ruled between 2001 and 2006.
The president said Yunus had not met him for nearly seven months, his press department had been taken away and, in September, his portraits were removed from Bangladeshi embassies around the world.
"There was the portrait of the president, picture of the president in all consulates, embassies and high commissions, and this has been eliminated suddenly in one night," he said. "A wrong message goes to the people that perhaps the president is going to be eliminated. I felt very much humiliated."
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Cooperation
