Imagine a nation on edge, holding its breath for a leader's fate. That was Bangladesh, gripped by worry as Khaleda Zia, the country's first female Prime Minister, battled illness. But her story is much more than just a medical crisis – it's a saga of power, resistance, and a legacy that continues to shape Bangladesh today.
In a poignant display of devotion, Tipu Sultan, a 48-year-old grassroots activist from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), stood outside Dhaka’s Evercare Hospital in early December. His placard declared his willingness to donate a kidney to Begum Khaleda Zia, a gesture that quickly went viral in the nation of 170 million. Since Khaleda's hospitalization on November 23rd, Tipu dedicated his days to waiting across from the hospital, steadfastly promising to remain until he heard news of her recovery.
"She is like my mother. She sacrificed everything for democracy,” Tipu told Al Jazeera, expressing a sentiment echoed by many of her supporters. “My only prayer is that God allows her to see the upcoming election,” he added, referring to the national elections scheduled for February 12.
Tragically, that prayer went unanswered. On December 30th, the BNP announced that Khaleda Zia, aged 80, had passed away in the hospital early that morning. “Our beloved national leader is no longer with us. She left us at 6am today,” the party stated on Facebook, marking the end of an era.
Khaleda’s death effectively closes a chapter spanning over three decades, a period during which she and her arch-rival, Sheikh Hasina (currently in exile in India), dominated Bangladeshi politics. They became known as the ‘battling begums’ – an honorific reserved for Muslim women of authority.
But here's where it gets controversial... Khaleda’s legacy is complex, much like Hasina's. Both women fought against authoritarianism and for democracy. However, while Hasina has faced accusations of mass atrocities against critics, Khaleda, while never accused of such acts, remained a polarizing figure. Her uncompromising style in opposition – marked by election boycotts and prolonged street movements – coupled with persistent allegations of corruption during her time in power, fostered intense loyalty among supporters and equal distrust among her critics. Was she a champion of the people, or a symbol of political division?
The Rise to Power:
Born on August 15, 1946, in Dinajpur (then part of British India’s East Bengal, now northern Bangladesh), Begum Khaleda Zia's early life offered little hint of the political force she would become. Her father, Iskandar Majumder, a businessman originally from Feni, had run a tea business in Jalpaiguri (now in India) before settling in East Bengal, the region that would soon transform into East Pakistan following the 1947 partition of India.
Khaleda's early years were spent in Dinajpur, where she attended Dinajpur Government Girls’ High School before enrolling at Surendranath College. Her foray into politics wasn't driven by personal ambition but by the tumultuous events that reshaped Bangladesh.
The assassination of her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, during a military mutiny in Chattogram on May 30, 1981, plunged Bangladesh into deep uncertainty. Rahman, who had brought stability after years of coups, left behind a fragile political order and a governing party, the BNP, without its founder.
And this is the part most people miss... Although Khaleda had remained outside the political arena during her husband’s presidency, senior BNP leaders saw her as the only figure capable of uniting the party’s factions and preserving Rahman’s legacy.
Following Rahman's death, Vice President Abdus Sattar assumed the role of acting president and subsequently won an election. However, within months, army chief Hussain Muhammad Ershad seized power in a bloodless coup in March 1982, imposing martial law. It was within this volatile context – with the military back in control and political parties struggling for survival – that Khaleda began her ascent, eventually becoming a prominent civilian figure challenging hardline rule.
Khaleda joined the BNP as a general member in January 1982, rose to vice chair in 1983, and was elected party chairperson in August 1984. In the decades that followed, she won three elections to become prime minister, dominating a political landscape alongside her long-time rival, Sheikh Hasina, and her Awami League party.
Her public life unfolded alongside profound personal struggles. Her elder son, Tarique Rahman, went into exile in 2008 after being arrested during an anticorruption drive led by a military-backed caretaker government. Her younger son, Arafat Rahman Koko, died of cardiac arrest in 2015 while living abroad. Khaleda herself spent lengthy periods in prison following her 2018 convictions in corruption cases brought by the Awami League government, followed by years of political isolation and deteriorating health.
Interestingly, Tarique eventually returned to Dhaka on December 25, after the cases against him were dropped by the interim government of Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, who took office after Hasina’s ouster.
“Her [Khaleda’s] entire life was filled with hardship, yet she chose her country over personal comfort,” observed Dilara Choudhury, a political scientist who closely observed both Khaleda and her husband. “That is why she is remembered across political lines as one of the most emblematic leaders of her time.”
Private Life Before Politics:
Those who knew Khaleda before her entry into public life describe her as reserved, soft-spoken, and consistently courteous. She married army officer Rahman in 1960, at the young age of 15, long before he became a national figure.
Rahman rose to prominence after Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war, later assuming the presidency in 1977 and founding the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in 1978. Khaleda would later inherit her husband’s political ideology, centered on nationalism, multi-party democracy, and a market-oriented economy.
From 1978 to 1981, she lived with her family in a modest military residence at 6 Moinul Road in Dhaka Cantonment, then designated as the residence of the deputy chief of the army. Colonel Harunur Rashid Khan, who served as an aide-de-camp to her husband, President Rahman, recalls her unassuming nature.
“She coordinated the house herself, welcomed guests and managed family matters,” Colonel Khan told Al Jazeera. “I never saw her raise her voice. She was humble, kind and thoughtful.”
He remembered her calm approach to parenting. When her younger son, Arafat, then aged 7, struggled to gain admission to a school, she simply requested alternative school options. And when the boy later injured himself imitating a television stunt, she expressed no anger towards the staff responsible for his care.
“That was the kind of person she was,” Khan said. “Graceful, composed and considerate.”
But everything changed on May 30, 1981.
At dawn that day, Khan learned that Rahman had been assassinated in the port city of Chattogram during an attempted coup by a group of army officers. Ershad, Rahman’s army chief, would eventually crush the coup but would himself seize power months later.
“For a moment [after learning of the assassination], I felt the ground slip beneath my feet; but I did not share the information with Madam [Begum Zia] for moments,” Khan said.
Fearing that the family residence might be the next target, he immediately ordered an entire company of about 120 soldiers to be ready to defend the family.
In the early morning, the two boys came out of their bedrooms, preparing to leave for school, but Khan stopped them. Minutes later, Khaleda stepped out of her bedroom. “She asked me, ‘What has happened?’ I told her there was unrest outside,” he said.
Without asking anything else, she retreated to her bedroom as a member of the house staff switched on the radio, and the announcement of her husband’s death filled the room.
“She stepped back, looked at my eyes, and she understood,” the former aide-de-camp said. “She sank into the floor.”
Khan remained to support the family for two more months. “She was mentally shattered,” he said.
As Rahman had left no other personal residence for his family, the government later permanently allocated the house at 6 Moinul Road to Khaleda, and she lived there until she was evicted in 2010 by Hasina’s administration.
From First Lady to First Female Prime Minister:
Following Rahman’s assassination in 1981, senior BNP leaders urged Khaleda, who wasn't even a party member at the time, to assume a public role.
Her rise coincided with growing public sentiment against Ershad’s military government. After taking over as president, the army chief suspended the constitution and imposed martial law.
Throughout the 1980s, the BNP and the Awami League, the two largest political parties, led parallel yet often coordinated street movements demanding the restoration of parliamentary democracy.
According to Choudhury, the political scientist, a crucial turning point came in 1986 when Ershad announced a national election that the opposition denounced as unconstitutional because martial law remained in force, and political freedoms were restricted. While the Awami League ultimately chose to contest the polls, the BNP, under Khaleda’s leadership, boycotted the election.
“Her decision to boycott the 1986 election – which she denounced as illegal even as the Awami League participated – reinforced her public image as someone unwilling to trade principle for expediency,” Choudhury said.
Repeated house arrests under the Ershad regime solidified this perception. “Khaleda Zia was unwavering in her objective to remove Ershad and restore democracy,” Choudhury said. “Her readiness to endure arrest, even in ill health, earned her respect.”
The 1991 election – the first after the end of military government in December 1990 – resulted in a hung parliament. The BNP won 140 seats, short of the 151 needed to form a government. The Awami League won 88 seats, the Jatiya Party 35, and Jamaat-e-Islami 18.
Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam opened negotiations with Hasina. Meanwhile, Golam Wahed Choudhury, the husband of Dilara Choudhury and a former minister of communications of undivided Pakistan, arranged a discreet meeting at his Dhaka residence, bringing together Khaleda, Jamaat leaders Ghulam Azam and Motiur Rahman Nizami, and the army chief, Lieutenant General Nuruddin.
Khaleda arrived alone, without informing other BNP leaders. The negotiations ultimately paved the way to allow Bangladeshi citizenship for two very contrasting political figures.
Jamaat chief Azam, who had supported Pakistan during the war of independence, had previously been stripped of his citizenship. Kader Siddique, a prominent 1971 war hero aligned with the Awami League’s political legacy, had been in exile in India after leading his private militia against the government and military following the 1975 assassination of Hasina’s husband, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – the leader of the country’s independence struggle and its first prime minister and president.
In return, Jamaat agreed to back the BNP in parliament, giving Khaleda the numbers needed to form a government.
“This negotiation showed her political prudence and firmness,” Choudhury said. “It could easily have failed.”
Khaleda was sworn in as Bangladesh’s first elected female prime minister, joining a line of South Asian women who had already held the region’s highest offices, including Indira Gandhi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and Benazir Bhutto.
Governance, Reforms, and Cries of Cronyism:
Khaleda led Bangladesh thrice: first between 1991 and 1996; then for a few months in 1996 during a short-lived second term; and finally, between 2001 and 2006.
Recalling the negotiation mediated by her husband in early 1991, Choudhury said that, as Khaleda was leaving the meeting, she paused to speak with the women of the household and asked what they expected from her.
“My elder sister, Professor Husneara Khan, replied, ‘We want you to give the country a comparatively honest and corruption-free administration’.”
Whether she ultimately delivered on that, Choudhury said, is a complex question. “She genuinely had that intention – inspired by her husband’s nationalist philosophy. She succeeded in many areas.”
Supporters credit Khaleda’s government with policies aimed at stabilizing a state emerging from years of hardline government. Her administration pursued economic liberalization, export-led growth, revival of industry, expansion of the garment sector, and wider access to education – particularly for girls. Her tenure also coincided with the expansion of a relatively free press.
When her last elected term ended in 2006, Bangladesh’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate stood at about 7 percent – one of the highest in the country’s post-independence history and well above the average of roughly 4.8 percent in the 1990s, as well as about 3.8 percent in the 1980s. At that time, the World Bank described Bangladesh as “Asia’s next tiger economy”.
Her administrations, however, drew criticism, too.
In 1995, an acute fertilizer shortage and a resulting sharp increase in prices – driven by hoarding and distribution failures at a crucial time for the winter paddy crop – led to protests by thousands of farmers. Police opened fire in several districts: At least a dozen farmers and one officer died in clashes, an incident that damaged her government’s reputation amid widespread rural frustration.
During her 2001–2006 term, critics accused her elder son, Tarique, of building an alleged parallel center of influence around his political office, widely known as Hawa Bhaban.
Allegations of corruption and claims that key decisions were being influenced through this parallel structure fueled persistent questions about governance under her watch.
Political Missteps:
Choudhury pointed to two episodes in which Khaleda’s government was accused of trying to influence electoral outcomes. A 1994 by-election in the Magura-2 parliamentary constituency was widely criticized as having been manipulated to benefit the BNP. Later, towards the end of her 2001–06 term, Zia was accused of trying to install a partisan caretaker government tasked with carrying out the next election.
Political historian Mohiuddin Ahmed, the author of the book Khaleda – an independent historical account of the former prime minister’s legacy – pointed to other instances that he said hurt her credibility.
A grenade attack on a rally of Hasina’s then-opposition Awami League on August 21, 2004, in Dhaka, killed at least 24 people and injured hundreds. The investigation under the BNP-led government was widely criticized for failing to promptly pursue credible leads into the role of Islamist armed groups, including Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, which investigators ultimately blamed for the attack.
A Dhaka court in 2018 convicted several individuals in connection with the attack. However, subsequent appeals and High Court rulings have overturned some convictions and acquitted others. Questions about accountability for the attack remain unresolved for many Bangladeshis.
In another incident, in April 2004, police and the coastguard intercepted a large consignment of illegal weapons believed to be destined for the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), an armed separatist group in India’s Assam region.
“These incidents deepened political hostility at home and created significant discomfort in Bangladesh’s relations with neighboring India,” Ahmed told Al Jazeera.
Zia’s missteps during her 2001-06 government contributed to the political instability that culminated in a military-backed takeover of power on January 11, 2007.
The army’s senior leadership then pressed then-President Iajuddin Ahmed to declare a state of emergency, resign as chief adviser of the sitting caretaker government, and cancel elections scheduled for later that month. With the army’s backing, former Bangladesh Bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed was appointed chief adviser of a new interim caretaker government tasked with stabilizing the country and preparing for future elections.
The move effectively sidelined both Khaleda and Hasina from front-line politics for nearly two years.
“Her [Khaleda’s] party created the circumstances [for the events of January 11, 2007], and the party – as well as her family – eventually became the victims of it,” Ahmed said.
‘Commitment to Democracy’:
Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, a former commerce minister in Khaleda’s 2001–04 cabinet and a current BNP leader, said that his former boss never wavered from her political positions even when she was under immense pressure to compromise.
“Her commitment to democracy and her patriotism had a profound impact on party workers,” he said. “Attempts to break the BNP – during 1/11 and later under Sheikh Hasina – never succeeded because her ideals held the organisation together,” he added, referring to the events of January 11, 2007.
Ahmed, the political historian, also said that while “many have benefitted from politics in recent decades”, Khaleda had “paid a very high price, especially after 2006″. He was referring to the years of imprisonment, political persecution, and sustained pressure endured by her and her family.
“Right or wrong, she rarely walked back from her stated positions, which we did not see among other contemporary politicians,” Ahmed said, citing her firmness during the anti-Ershad movement and her insistence on elections only under caretaker governments.
That she became the first woman to occupy the nation’s highest elected office in a socially conservative society traditionally skeptical of female leadership will always also remain a part of her legacy.
Her refusal to flee the country during crises – whether after January 2007, when her elder son was forced into exile as they faced numerous cases, or when she faced retribution under Hasina – also helped hold the BNP together, say analysts.
“She could have left, but she chose to stay and face the consequences. That determination set her apart,” Ahmed said.
The political historian also pointed to Khaleda’s restraint in political language. “Even when she was targeted with harsh propaganda and abusive remarks, she did not respond in that manner.”
Her message following the fall of Hasina in August 2024 was an example.
Freed from house arrest on August 6, after student-led protests forced Hasina to flee to India, Khaleda urged her supporters not to pursue retaliation.
“For many, it was an almost unimaginable moment,” Mohiuddin said. “She avoided inflammatory language even when the political tide turned in her favour.”
For many everyday Bangladeshis, this trait is central to how she will be remembered. “Both Hasina and Khaleda ruled the country well, but in my opinion, Khaleda did better,” said 77-year-old Nazim Uddin, speaking to Al Jazeera in early December while chatting with friends outside a commercial complex not far from Evercare Hospital.
But a key question now looms: What awaits the BNP in a post-Khaleda era?
At the center of any answer to that question is Khaleda’s only surviving son, Tarique Rahman.
“Like the Awami League, the BNP has become a one-person-centric party,” political historian Mohiuddin Ahmed said. “With Tarique Rahman’s leadership still untested, the BNP is likely to face a serious leadership crisis.”
But others disagree.
Choudhury, the political scientist who knew Khaleda well, said that the BNP would now unite under Tarique. “There will be no division in the party,” she said.
Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, the former minister under Khaleda, said that he believes Tarique, who has led the party as acting chair since 2018 from exile in the United Kingdom, has already “taken up the torch that his mother carried from his father, Ziaur Rahman”.
Tarique was greeted with a significant show of support by the party faithful when he returned to Dhaka from exile on Christmas Day, weeks ahead of the national election, in which the BNP is in a close race for poll position with its former ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami.
In his first comments since returning, Tarique spoke of wanting to build an inclusive Bangladesh. Some experts believe the 60-year-old might also be able to repair ties with India, which have suffered since Hasina’s removal and her decision to flee to New Delhi. Though India and the BNP have traditionally not enjoyed warm ties, with New Delhi preferring Hasina’s Awami League as its partner in Dhaka, both have sent overtures to each other in recent days.
Now the BNP’s, and Tarique’s, big test awaits: February’s elections will not just determine who leads Bangladesh, but could reveal whether the country trusts Khaleda’s heir to continue her legacy.
So, what do you think? Will Tarique be able to fill his mother's shoes and unite the BNP? Or is the party destined for a leadership crisis? And how will Khaleda Zia be remembered in the history books - as a champion of democracy, or a divisive political figure? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
