Former prime minister and one-time opposition leader Sheikh Hasina has been sworn in as Bangladesh's new prime minister, ending two years of emergency rule.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina named her 31-strong team on Tuesday, dropping
almost her party's entire policymaking presidium from the cabinet.
Hasina appointed Dr Dipu Moni foreign minister, and another
street veteran advocate Sahara Khatun home minister.
Twenty-four of them will hold cabinet rank, while the rest
eight will be junior ministers.
Party stalwarts such as Amir Hossain Amu, Sajeda Chowdhury,
Abdur Razzaq, Tofail Ahmed, Suranjit Sengupta, Abdul Jalil, Sheikh Fazlul Karim
Selim—all MPs and presidium members—were left out.
An army-backed interim government has ruled Bangladesh since 2007, when the
military intervened to end months of violence between supporters of Ms.
Hasina's Awami League and the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by
Khaleda Zia.
A two-year state of emergency was lifted last month, weeks before Bangladesh's
first parliamentary election in seven years (held on December 29th).
The Awami League coalition won a majority of the 300 seats in parliament in
that poll. International observers declared the election free and fair.
Ms. Zia has said she is prepared to work with the new prime minister, and she
sent legislators from her party to attend today's swearing-in ceremony.
