Khaleda Zia (1945–2025): Begum's impact on Bangladesh

Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first female prime minister and one of the most influential and polarising figures in the nation’s political history, died on Tuesday after a prolonged illness. She was 80.

Her party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said she had been suffering from multiple health complications, including advanced liver cirrhosis, diabetes, arthritis, and heart and chest problems. She had returned earlier this year from London, where she underwent several months of medical treatment.

Khaleda Zia rose to prominence after the assassination of her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, in 1981. Previously known as a private and reserved homemaker devoted to raising her two sons, she was thrust into politics and, in 1984, assumed leadership of the BNP, the party her husband had founded.

She played a key role in the mass democratic movement that ended military rule under Hossain Mohammad Ershad in 1990. The following year, Bangladesh held its first widely accepted free election, which Khaleda won, becoming the country’s first woman prime minister and only the second woman to lead a democratic government in a Muslim-majority nation.

During her first term, she restored the parliamentary system of government, encouraged foreign investment, and introduced free and compulsory primary education. She lost power in 1996 but returned with a decisive victory in 2001.

Her political career, however, was marked by intense rivalry with Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League and daughter of Bangladesh’s founding father. Their long-running feud—often described as the era of the “Battling Begums”—dominated national politics for decades and frequently paralysed the country through protests, strikes, and unrest.

Khaleda’s second term was overshadowed by allegations of corruption and the rise of Islamist militancy. After an army-backed interim government took power in 2006, she was jailed on corruption charges, later spending years in detention or under house arrest. Though repeatedly convicted, she maintained that the cases against her were politically motivated. In 2025, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court acquitted her in the key corruption case that had led to her imprisonment.

Despite being out of office since 2006, Khaleda remained a symbol of opposition politics, commanding loyalty among millions of supporters. She was released from house arrest in 2024 following the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Khaleda Zia is survived by her two sons, including Tarique Rahman, the acting chairman of the BNP, who has emerged as a leading figure in the party’s future.

Her death marks the end of an era in Bangladesh’s politics—one defined by fierce rivalry, democratic struggle, and enduring influence.

With inputs from agencies