Dhaka — Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first woman prime minister and long-time chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, died early Tuesday while undergoing treatment at Evercare Hospital in the capital. She was 79.
Her personal physician, Dr. AZM Zahid Hossain, said Khaleda Zia died shortly after dawn while receiving intensive care. The BNP confirmed the death in a statement posted on its verified Facebook page. “Khaleda Zia passed away at around 6:00am, just after Fajr prayer,” the party said in the post, issued from Dhaka on Tuesday morning.
Khaleda Zia had been admitted to Evercare Hospital on November 23 on the advice of a medical board after being diagnosed with infections affecting her heart and lungs. Doctors said she was also battling pneumonia. She had suffered from a range of chronic conditions for years, including heart disease, liver and kidney complications, diabetes, lung problems, arthritis, and eye-related illnesses. She had a permanent pacemaker and had previously undergone cardiac stenting.
Since returning from London on May 6 after advanced medical treatment, Khaleda Zia had been under close medical supervision, with regular hospital visits as her health deteriorated.
Khaleda Zia rose to national prominence at a pivotal moment in the country’s democratic journey. She first assumed office through a popular vote in the 1991 general election, leading the restoration of the parliamentary system after years of military and quasi-military rule. Her first term is widely associated with the reintroduction of parliamentary democracy and later the institutionalization of the caretaker government system aimed at ensuring credible elections.
Born in Jalpaiguri in 1945, Khaleda Zia—nicknamed “Putul” by her family—was educated in Dinajpur before marrying Ziaur Rahman in 1960, then a captain in the Pakistan army. During the 1971 Liberation War, Ziaur Rahman revolted against Pakistani forces and joined the independence struggle, later emerging as a key political and military leader of the new state.
After Ziaur Rahman was assassinated on May 30, 1981, the BNP plunged into crisis. Khaleda Zia, previously removed from active politics, stepped forward and was elected vice-president of the party in 1984, becoming chairperson the same year. Under her leadership, the BNP forged alliances and spearheaded a mass movement against the autocratic regime of Hussain Muhammad Ershad, a period marked by repeated detentions and restrictions on her political activity.
Her electoral victory in 1991 made her Bangladesh’s first female prime minister. She went on to serve three non-consecutive terms, winning elections in 1991 and 2001 and briefly returning to office in early 1996. In a rare move in South Asian politics at the time, she handed over power in March 1996 to a neutral caretaker government following constitutional amendments demanded by the opposition, paving the way for elections later that year.
Following the BNP’s defeat in the June 1996 polls, Khaleda Zia served as Leader of the Opposition in the Jatiya Sangsad. She returned to power in 2001 after the BNP-led alliance secured a landslide victory under a caretaker administration.
Her later political life was marked by deep polarization and legal battles. During the army-backed caretaker government in 2007, she was jailed along with other senior leaders, including Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina. Although released and allowed to contest the 2008 election, the BNP suffered a heavy defeat.
In 2014, Khaleda Zia and the BNP boycotted the general election, leaving the party outside parliament for the first time since the return of democracy. In 2018, she was sentenced in corruption cases related to the Zia Orphanage Trust and the Zia Charitable Trust, leading to her imprisonment on February 8 that year.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the then Awami League government granted her conditional release by executive order on March 25, 2020, allowing her to remain at her Gulshan residence for medical treatment but barring foreign travel. After years of legal and political pressure, she was fully exempted from her sentence on August 6 this year, when President Mohammed Shahabuddin exercised his constitutional authority under Article 49.
Khaleda Zia is survived by her elder son, Tarique Rahman, his wife, and their daughter. Tarique Rahman returned to Bangladesh on December 25 after 17 years in exile. Her younger son, Arafat Rahman Koko, died in Malaysia several years ago.
With her death, Bangladesh closes a chapter defined by fierce rivalry, mass movements, and repeated cycles of democratic advance and retreat. Supporters remember Khaleda Zia as an uncompromising leader who stood firm against authoritarianism, while critics fault her confrontational politics. Few, however, dispute her central role in shaping the country’s post-1990 political order.
