Slain chief’s widow who grew to become Bangladesh’s first feminine PM

Khaleda Zia, who has died on the age of 80, was Bangladesh’s first feminine prime minister.

She was as soon as described as a “shy housewife” to her husband Ziaur Rahman, a number one determine within the nation’s battle for independence who grew to become the president in 1977.

However following her husband’s assassination in 1981, Zia rose to guide his Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion (BNP) and served two phrases as prime minister – first within the Nineteen Nineties after which within the early 2000s.

Her tumultuous public life didn’t finish after her premiership – she was later accused of corruption aand spent years in jail – however the costs have been dropped after a 2024 rebellion that noticed her long-time rival, Sheikh Hasina, swept from energy.

Begum Khaleda Zia was born in West Bengal in 1945.

The daughter of a tea dealer, she moved to what’s now Bangladesh along with her household after the partition of India.

On the age of 15, she married Ziaur Rahman, then a younger military officer.

In 1971, he joined a mutiny towards West Pakistani forces and declared independence for Bangladesh.

After the navy ceased energy in 1977, Rahman – who then grew to become the military chief of employees – declared himself president. He reintroduced political events and a free media, and was later endorsed by fashionable vote.

He confronted as many as 20 additional navy coups, and handled them brutally. There have been experiences of mass executions of troopers.

In 1981, he was assassinated by a gaggle of military officers in Chittagong.

On the age of 36, Khaleda Zia grew to become a widow.

Till then, she had saved a low profile and appeared to take little curiosity in public life.

However in 1982 she grew to become a member of the BNP, the occasion based by her husband, and later rose to change into its vice chairman.

1982 was additionally the 12 months Bangladesh started 9 years of navy dictatorship, after its military chief seized energy in a coup.

Throughout this era, Zia launched into a fervent marketing campaign towards navy rule, staging a boycott of the military’s heavily-managed elections.

Zia was put beneath home arrest a number of instances for her activism, however gained a popularity among the many folks as an “uncompromising chief”.

After the autumn of the navy authorities in 1990, Khaleda Zia and the BNP grew to become the biggest occasion in post-military elections, and she or he was sworn in as prime minister in 1991.

Having absorbed a lot of the powers of the previous presidency, she was now the primary feminine chief of Bangladesh, and solely the second elected girl to guide a Muslim nation.

Along with her ascension to the premiership, Bangladesh’s authorities returned to a parliamentary system.

Among the many most notable reforms she applied throughout her first time period was making main college training free and necessary for all.

However in 1996 she would lose her bid for re-election to Hasina’s Awami League.

In 2001, Zia had her revenge, having fashioned a alliance with a gaggle of Islamist events. Collectively, they gained practically two thirds of the seats in parliament, however the BNP’s closeness to the Islamist events would draw criticism through the years.

In her second time period, Zia championed girls’s points, reminiscent of introducing a quota for feminine MPs and offering training for younger girls – in a rustic the place 70% of them have been illiterate.

Quickly after Zia ended her time period in workplace in 2006, Bangladesh was gripped by riots within the political vacuum. Amid the unrest, the nation’s interim authorities, backed by the navy, banned most political exercise and started a crackdown on high-level corruption, which minimize throughout political traces.

Zia was arrested on costs of extortion and corruption. So was her nice rival Hasina.

Each girls, who had alternated from authorities to opposition for one of the best a part of twenty years, have been all of the sudden mired in court docket instances.

Restrictions have been lifted on Zia within the years after, and after dropping a military-sponsored election in 2008 she grew to become the opposition chief.

The BNP misplaced its illustration in parliament after boycotting the 2014 election.

In 2018, Zia was convicted and jailed for 5 years after being discovered responsible of embezzling about $252,000 (£188,000) supposed for an orphanage belief arrange when she was prime minister.

She grew to become the one prisoner locked up in Dhaka’s previous – and now disused – central jail. The size of her sentence disqualified her from looking for public workplace.

She denied wrongdoing, and stated the costs have been politically motivated.

A 12 months later, the then 73-year-old Zia was transferred to hospital for therapy for situations together with extreme arthritis and uncontrolled diabetes.

She was finally launched from jail on well being grounds and informed to stay at house.

Tides turned but once more in 2024, when Hasina’s authorities was swept from energy on a wave of fashionable discontent.

Hasina fled to India, and the interim authorities that changed her ordered Khaleda Zia’s launch and the unfreezing of her financial institution accounts.

By this time, she was affected by a collection of life-threatening situations together with cirrhosis of the liver and kidney harm.

In January 2025, her journey restrictions have been lifted and she or he was allowed to journey to London for therapy.

However within the early morning of 30 December, she died in Dhaka after affected by months of poor well being.

She is survived by her elder son Tarique Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh in late December after spending years in exile in London, and who’s extensively seen because the frontrunner to change into Bangladesh’s subsequent chief. “Koko”, her youthful son, died in 2015.