Obituary: Khaleda Zia

Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first woman prime minister and one of the most consequential — and polarizing — figures in the country’s post-independence politics, died on Tuesday after a prolonged illness, she was 80. Her death marks the end of an era dominated for more than three decades by an intense rivalry that shaped Bangladesh’s political culture, institutions and democratic trajectory.

Born Khaleda Khan, she lived a largely private life until tragedy thrust her into public prominence. Described by contemporaries as shy and family-oriented, she devoted herself to raising her two sons until the assassination of her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, in a failed military coup in 1981. Three years later, she assumed leadership of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by her late husband, pledging to fulfil his vision of rescuing Bangladesh from poverty and economic stagnation.

Khaleda Zia rose to national leadership during a historic moment. Alongside Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, she led a popular uprising that toppled military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad in 1990. Yet the alliance soon collapsed, giving birth to one of South Asia’s fiercest political rivalries. The two leaders came to be known as the “battling Begums,” their contrasting personalities and uncompromising politics dominating public life for decades.

In 1991, Khaleda Zia won Bangladesh’s first widely regarded free and fair election, becoming the country’s first female prime minister and only the second woman to lead a democratic government in the Muslim world after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto. Her government restored the parliamentary system, encouraged foreign investment, and made primary education free and compulsory.

Defeated in 1996, she returned to power with a landslide victory in 2001. However, her second term was overshadowed by the rise of Islamist militancy, allegations of corruption, and political violence, including the deadly 2004 grenade attack on an opposition rally — an episode that would haunt her legacy.

Ousted from power in 2006, Khaleda Zia spent years in jail or under house arrest amid corruption cases she consistently denounced as politically motivated. Her health steadily declined, and she was released on humanitarian grounds before being fully freed in 2024 following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court acquitted her and her family in the long-running corruption cases.

Though long absent from office, Khaleda Zia remained a commanding presence, with the BNP retaining deep popular roots. Her death closes a turbulent chapter in Bangladesh’s history — one defined by resilience, rivalry, and the enduring struggle for democratic stability.