Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first female prime minister, dies at 80

By Ruma Paul

DHAKA, Dec 30 (Reuters) – Khaleda Zia, who became Bangladesh’s first female prime minister in 1991 and went on to develop a bitter rivalry with Sheikh Hasina as they spent decades trading power, died on Tuesday after a long illness. She was 80.

Her opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said that she died after a prolonged illness. She had advanced cirrhosis of the liver, arthritis, diabetes, and chest and heart problems, her doctors said.

She went to London for medical treatment in early 2025, staying for four months before returning home.

Though Khaleda had been out of power since 2006 and had spent several years in jail or under house arrest, she and her centre-right BNP continued to command much support.

The BNP is seen as the frontrunner to win the parliamentary election slated to take place in February. Her son and acting chairman of the party, Tarique Rahman, 60, returned to the country last week from nearly 17 years in self-exile and is widely seen as a strong candidate to become prime minister.

Since August 2024, after a student-led uprising led to the ouster of Hasina, Bangladesh has been run by an interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel peace laureate and microfinance pioneer.

In November, Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia for her deadly crackdown on the student protests.

Known by her first name, Khaleda was described as shy and devoted to raising her two sons until her husband, military leader and then-President Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in an attempted army coup in 1981.

Three years later she became the head of the BNP, which her husband had founded, and vowed to deliver on his aim of “liberating Bangladesh from poverty and economic backwardness”.

She joined hands with Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh’s founding father and head of the Awami League party, to lead a popular uprising for democracy that toppled military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad in 1990.

BATTLING BEGUMS

But their cooperation did not last long. Their bitter rivalry would lead to the two being dubbed “the battling Begums” – a phrase that uses an Urdu honorific for prominent women.

Supporters saw her as polite and traditional yet quietly stylish, someone who chose her words carefully. But they also viewed her as a bold, uncompromising leader when it came to defending her party and confronting her rivals.

Hasina, by contrast, was far more outspoken and assertive. Their opposite personalities helped fuel the rivalry that dominated Bangladesh’s politics for decades.

In 1991, Bangladesh held what was hailed as its first free election. Khaleda won a surprise victory over Hasina, having gained the support of the country’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami.

In doing so, Khaleda became Bangladesh’s first female prime minister and only the second woman to lead a democratic government of a mainly Muslim nation after Benazir Bhutto, elected to lead Pakistan three years earlier.

Khaleda replaced the presidential system with a parliamentary one, so that power rested with the prime minister. She also lifted restrictions on foreign investment and made primary education compulsory and free.

She lost to Hasina in the 1996 general election but came back five years later with a surprise landslide win.

Her second term was marred by the rise of Islamist militants and allegations of corruption.

In 2004, a rally that Hasina was addressing was hit by grenades. Hasina survived but over 20 people were killed and more than 500 wounded. Khaleda’s government and its Islamic allies were widely blamed.

In 2018, after Hasina had reclaimed Bangladesh’s highest office, Rahman was tried in absentia and sentenced to life for the attack. The BNP denounced the trial as politically motivated.

DETENTION AND FREEDOM

Although Khaleda later clamped down on Islamist radical groups, her second stint as prime minister ended in 2006 when an army-backed interim government took power amid political instability and street violence.

The interim government jailed both Khaleda and Hasina on charges of corruption and abuse of power for about a year before they were both released ahead of a general election in 2008.

Khaleda never regained power. With the BNP boycotting the 2014 and 2024 elections, her vitriolic feud with Hasina continued to dominate Bangladeshi politics.

Tension between their two parties often led to strikes, violence and deaths, impeding the economic development of Bangladesh, a poverty-stricken country of about 175 million that is low-lying and prone to devastating floods.

In 2018, Khaleda, Rahman and aides were convicted of stealing some $250,000 in foreign donations received by an orphanage trust set up when she was last prime minister – charges that she said were part of a plot to keep her and her family out of politics.

She was jailed but moved to house arrest in March 2020 on humanitarian grounds as her health deteriorated.

Khaleda was freed from house arrest in August 2024 after Hasina’s ouster.

In early 2025, Khaleda and Rahman were acquitted by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court in the corruption case that resulted in the 2018 jail sentences. Rahman had been acquitted of the 2004 grenade attack on Hasina a month earlier.

(Editing by Krishna N. Das, Edwina Gibbs and Olivier Holmey)