Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Flees, Interim Government Formed

The forced exit of Sheikh Hasina on August 5, 2024, marked the most abrupt leadership collapse in South Asia in over a decade — and its 2025 aftermath kept Bangladesh in global headlines. A student-led protest movement, during which more than 300 people were killed in the July–August crackdown, toppled a leader who had governed for 15 consecutive years. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus stepped in as chief adviser of an interim government, guiding a nation of 170 million people and an economy underpinned by more than $35 billion in annual garment exports. By 2025, Yunus had convened a constitutional reform commission, though competing factions slowed consensus. The transition attracted more sustained donor scrutiny over democratic governance than any South Asian political handover since Sri Lanka's 2022 economic collapse, with Western governments tying aid packages directly to measurable reform benchmarks. This level of external oversight was 40% higher than that seen in Pakistan's 2022 political transition, as donors demanded quarterly transparency reports.