Khaleda Zia, the trailblazing former prime minister who became Bangladesh's first woman to lead the government, has died in Dhaka at the age of 80. Her passing on Tuesday, following a prolonged illness, closes a defining chapter in the nation's political history, characterised by her decades-long rivalry with fellow female leader Sheikh Hasina.
The End of an Era for Bangladesh
Zia's death, coupled with the ousting of her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina in 2024, signals the conclusion of a rare period of women-dominated politics in South Asia. For generations, the two leaders, often dubbed the "Battling Begums", traded power and defined Bangladesh's democratic trajectory. Doctors confirmed she suffered from advanced cirrhosis of the liver, arthritis, diabetes, and significant heart and chest problems.
Having first taken office in 1991, Zia established herself as one of the two formidable poles of Bangladeshi politics. Despite being out of power since 2006 and enduring years of jail and house arrest under Hasina's administration, she and her conservative Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) maintained substantial popular support. In a significant turn, the Supreme Court acquitted her of the last remaining corruption charge in January 2025, cases she had long claimed were politically motivated.
A Political Journey Forged from Tragedy
Zia's entry into politics was born from personal tragedy. Initially a shy housewife focused on her two sons, her life changed irrevocably when her husband, military ruler and later President Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in an attempted army coup in 1981. By 1984, she had taken the helm of the BNP, founded by her late husband, pledging to fulfil his vision of liberating Bangladesh from poverty.
In a historic collaboration, she briefly joined forces with Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the nation's founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to lead a popular uprising that toppled military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad in 1990. However, this alliance swiftly dissolved into a bitter and enduring rivalry.
Her landmark 1991 election victory, achieved with the support of the Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami, made her Bangladesh's first woman prime minister and only the second to lead a democratic, majority-Muslim nation after Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto. During her tenure, she replaced the presidential system with a parliamentary one, lifted restrictions on foreign investment, and made primary education both free and compulsory.
Legacy of Rivalry and Recent Developments
Zia's political career was marked by dramatic highs and lows, including a surprise landslide return to power in 2001. Her second term, however, was marred by the rise of Islamist militancy and corruption allegations. A grenade attack on a rally addressed by Sheikh Hasina in 2004, which killed over 20 people, was widely blamed on Zia's government and its allies.
Following Hasina's return to leadership, Zia was sentenced to 17 years in jail on corruption charges in 2018, which her party denounced as a political manoeuvre. Released to a rented home in 2020, her repeated requests to travel abroad for medical treatment were denied by the Hasina government. This changed under the current interim administration of Muhammad Yunus, who permitted her to seek treatment in London for four months in early 2025.
It was widely anticipated she would run in the February general election. That mantle will now pass to her son, Tarique Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh last week after 17 years in self-exile and is the BNP's acting chairman.
Tributes have poured in from across the political spectrum. Interim leader Muhammad Yunus expressed being "deeply saddened and grief-stricken", declaring Zia a "Very, Very Important Person of the State". Sheikh Hasina, now in Delhi, acknowledged Zia's significant contributions as the first woman prime minister and to the democratic struggle. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also offered his condolences on X.
Khaleda Zia is survived by her elder son and political heir, Tarique Rahman. Her younger son, Arafat, died in 2015.
