Interim government chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on Thursday told his cabinet colleagues that his government had entered its second phase and was now focused on the national election.
鈥楢t the outset, the chief adviser has told the meeting of the council of advisers that the interim government has entered its second phase and now our focus is to hold the national elections in a fair and festive manner,鈥� the chief adviser鈥檚 press secretary Shafiqul Alam told a聽 press briefing at the secretariat.
He said that they had already made progresses in trials of those involved in atrocities during the authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India on August 5 amid a student-led mass uprising in 2024.
About the election date, he said that the election process had begun with the formal request from the government and it was now the responsibility of the Election Commission to fix the date and announce the schedule as well.
The press secretary said that the Chief Adviser鈥檚 Office on Wednesday a sent a letter to the Election Commission鈥檚 senior secretary formally requesting the EC to hold the national election in February before the month of Ramadan, likely to be begin in the third week of February, pursuant to his commitment.
In his address to the nation marking the first anniversary of July Mass Uprising Day, Yunus on Tuesday said that he would write to the chief election commissioner for making all preparations to hold the next national election in February, 2026 before Ramadan.
He said that they would now begin the process of handing over power to an elected government.
Shafiqul said that the government was working on how they could engage more members of the law enforcement agencies to ensure a free and fair.
In the past one year from August 8, 2024 to July 31, 2025, Professor Yunus held 41 meetings of advisory council that took 315 decisions, of which 247 were implemented. 鈥楽eventy eight per cent of the decisions made in the advisory council meetings were implemented, which is the highest under any government,鈥� the press secretary said.
The council of advisers congratulated his two cabinet colleagues 鈥� commerce adviser Sk Bashir Uddin for successfully negotiating with the United States that lowered the reciprocal tariff to 20 per cent from 35 per cent and cultural adviser Mostofa Sarwar Farooki for successfully organising the July 36 programmes that began on July 1 and ended on August 5 marking the one year of the July uprising.
It also decided to introduce an award for teachers named after Milestone School and College teacher Mehrin Chowdhury, who sacrificed her life to save the lives of her students in a recent jet crash on the Milestone campus at Uttara in the Dhaka city.聽
The press secretary said that 16 out of 121 proposals made by reform commissions had already been implemented, while 85 proposals were in the process of implementation.
The remaining 10 are being examined to ascertain whether those are implementable, he said.
Shafiqul said that the council of advisers had approved the proposal to change the name of the Gazipur Digital University as the Gazipur Frontier Technology University, citing that there was a long-standing demand for changing the name of the university.
