Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia died on Tuesday, December 30, after suffering from a prolonged illness. She was 80.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson breathed her last at 6 am on Tuesday, according to a statement issued by her party.
“BNP chairperson and former prime minister, national leader Begum Khaleda Zia, passed away today at 6:00 am, just after the Fajr (dawn) prayer,” the party said in a statement.
“We pray for the forgiveness of her soul and ask everyone to pray for her departed soul,” he added.
Meanwhile, BNP’s media cell posted on Facebook early on Monday: “Our beloved national leader Begum Khaleda Zia is no more. She passed away at 6 am this morning.”
Doctors previously told Reuters that Zia had liver disease, diabetes and heart problems.
Khaleda Zia: Bangladesh’s first female Prime Minister
Begum Khaleda Zia, born 15 August 1946, was the Chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). She has been Prime Minister of Bangladesh three times since 1991.
She became the first woman elected Prime Minister of Bangladesh and the second in the Muslim world.
Begum Zia was born to Iskandar Majumder and Taiyaba Majumder in Dinajpur district. Her father emigrated to what was then West Pakistan after partition from Jalpaiguri, India, where he ran a tea business.
Khaleda Zia studied at Dinajpur Government Girls’ High School and later at Surendranath College.
In 1960, she married a Bangladeshi military officer, Ziaur Rahman. When Ziaur Rahman became President of Bangladesh, Begum Zia accompanied him as First Lady and met world leaders, including Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
She joined the BNP as a general member on 2 January 1982 after her husband Zia was assassinated in an attempted military coup in 1981.
In March 1983, she was elected vice-president of the party, and in August 1984, the party elected her president.
In 1991, Khaleda Zia became the first female Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
According to the BNP, Begum Zia holds the “unique record of never losing in any constituency”. She was elected in five separate parliamentary constituencies in general elections in 1991, 1996 and 2001. In 2008, she won all three constituencies in which she stood.
Her time in politics was marred by allegations of corruption. In 2006, she resigned as Prime Minister. In 2007, Begum Khaleda Zia was placed under house arrest. In 2018, she was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Zia was the arch-rival of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, who resigned in 2024 and fled the country.
Since Hasina’s victory in 2009, Khaleda has faced a string of criminal charges and prison terms, retreating from public life and leaving her eldest son Tarique Rahman in charge of her political movement.
