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Bangladesh’s three-time prime minister Khaleda Zia, has died on Tuesday, aged 80.
Zia, a dominant figure for decades in the South Asian country’s turbulent power struggles, had vowed to run in elections next year, the first since a mass uprising toppled her arch-rival.
Despite years of ill health and imprisonment, just last month, Zia had promised to campaign in elections expected in February 2026, in which her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is widely seen as a frontrunner.
“Unite the party and prepare to lead,” Zia had urged BNP members earlier this year.
But in late November, she was rushed to the hospital, where, despite the best efforts of medics, her condition declined from a raft of health issues.
Zia was jailed for corruption in 2018 under the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina, which also barred her from travelling abroad for medical treatment.
She was released shortly after Hasina’s ouster in August 2024.
For decades, Bangladesh’s politics was shaped by the fierce rivalry between Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, a feud widely known as the “Battle of the Begums,” a South Asian honorific for powerful women.
The animosity dates back to 1975, when Hasina’s father, independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated alongside most of his family in a military coup. Three months later, Zia’s husband, Ziaur Rahman, then deputy army chief, emerged as the country’s strongman, formally becoming president in 1977 before he was assassinated in 1981.
Widowed at 35 and a mother of two, Zia inherited the leadership of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Initially dismissed as politically inexperienced, she quickly proved a formidable force, mobilising opposition against military ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad and later joining hands with Hasina to help oust him in 1990.
Over the next 15 years, the two women alternated in power, their deep-seated rivalry fuelling repeated political crises, including the January 2007 standoff that ushered in military-backed emergency rule. Both leaders were detained for more than a year during that period.
Hasina eventually consolidated power, ruling from 2008 until her violent downfall in 2024.
Zia’s own legacy remains mixed: she was admired for her resilience and determination but criticised for an uncompromising leadership style that often left her politically isolated at home and abroad.
Yet Zia’s political influence may not be over. Her son, Tarique Rahman, long regarded as her heir, has declared his intention to contest future elections.
Known locally as Tarique Zia, the 60-year-old returned from exile in London on December 25 after fleeing Bangladesh in 2008, citing political persecution.
Following Hasina’s fall, Rahman was acquitted of the most serious charge against him, a life sentence imposed in absentia over a 2004 grenade attack on a Hasina rally, an allegation he has consistently denied.
Today, his image appears alongside his mother’s on BNP banners, signalling what could be the next chapter in Bangladesh’s long-running and turbulent political saga.
