Bangladesh government to seize control of Grameen Bank

I didn't find the reference to unrelated spending by Grameen in the linked article.

Not to nitpick, but I think you mean Bangladeshi Government not Bengali. I was confused when I read Bengali Government. For sec, I thought you were referencing to West Bengal government.

I don't think it's fair to compare what happened in India with Grameen Bank. What happened in india was flat out scam. GB on the other hand is a successful institution with proper checks and balance and does business in many countries. The problem with GB and the BD government has little to do with financial scam and more to do with trying to take over the institution on some banal technicalities in an effort to discredit Yunus, because of the reason you already mentioned. If Yunus gets into politics it can do some serious damage to the present status quo and they are scared of it.

I currently live here. The whole country is pretty much pissed off, because of this.

you might want to differentiate between bangladeshi government and a bengali government. ( Though Bangladesh is technically east bengal :). The former is a separate country and the latter a state within india.

Having said that, this is a backward step by the government and will hurt the economy in the long term. It doesn't matter if the bank strayed from its original purpose or not. That's not the point.

He also acknowledges that much of the years of endemic poverty and disease in Bangladesh has been due to having a dysfunctional and corrupt government. He is in the process of fixing the country, which as an incidental side effect gives evidence that it was never circumstances beyond their control that caused the failure of the nation, but corruption, fraud and waste.

Demolishing Younas's work and returning the country back to a path mired in poverty protects the positions and reputation of those in political power who are now seen by the populace as not just corrupt, not just useless, but actively responsible for past suffering.

Eliminating Younas' influence and destroying his work places them back in position as people you have to deal with to get handouts to survive. Self reliance is a threat to dependency and dependency serves the power and wealth of those upon whom people are dependent.

They have been doing it for many years. They forced him out years ago. And really, this type of power plays "no matter what the cost" is very common in developing countries and a major reason why countries do not develop.

Thats not true, the government actually owns a large share of Grameen bank. Actually they are the largest shareholder of GB. Technically and legally the government has the right to take over the bank and restructure it in according to the "constitution" of the bank. There are some minor discrepancies, nothing serious. However they could have handled it better, more diplomatically without pissiing off everyone.

It goes without saying, as others mentioned already, the current government is rightfully scared of Yunus, he is extremely popular and well received by everyone outside the current political parties. At one time, he contemplated joining politics; but decided against it. If he decides to run again, he can single handedly wipe out the current political status quo.

It doesn't look like he is interested in getting his hands dirty.