Three-time Bangladesh PM Khaleda Zia, a central figure in the nation’s turbulent politics, has died at 80 after years of ill health.
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s three-time former prime minister Khaleda Zia has died at the age of 80.
A dominant figure for decades in the nation’s turbulent power struggles, Zia had recently vowed to run in elections expected next year.
Despite years of ill health and imprisonment, she promised last month to campaign for the 2026 polls where her Bangladesh Nationalist Party is widely seen as a frontrunner.
“Unite the party and prepare to lead,” Zia had urged BNP members earlier this year.
She was rushed to hospital in late November where her condition declined from a raft of health issues.
Zia was jailed for corruption in 2018 under the government of her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina, which also barred her from travelling abroad for medical treatment.
She was released shortly after Hasina’s ouster in August 2024.
Bangladesh’s politics was long defined by the bitter feud between Zia and Hasina, dubbed the “Battle of the Begums”.
The rivalry traces back to the 1975 assassination of Hasina’s father, independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Three months later, Zia’s husband, Ziaur Rahman, then deputy army chief, effectively took control and later became president.
Zia inherited the BNP leadership after her husband’s 1981 assassination.
Initially dismissed as a political novice, she proved a formidable opponent and later joined forces with Hasina to oust a military dictator in 1990.
The two women alternated in power for the next decade and a half.
Their intractable rivalry fuelled crises, including a 2007 standoff that brought military-backed emergency rule.
Hasina later dominated, ruling from 2008 until her violent downfall in 2024.
Zia’s tenure left a mixed legacy, admired for her resolve but criticised for a refusal to compromise.
Her political legacy may yet continue through her son, Tarique Rahman, long seen as her political heir.
Rahman returned from exile in London on December 25 after fleeing what he called politically motivated persecution.
Following Hasina’s fall, he was acquitted of a life sentence for a 2004 grenade attack on a Hasina rally, which he has always denied.
