Bangladesh's former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia dies

Dhaka, Dec 30 (PTI) Bangladesh first woman prime minister Khaleda Zia, who played a major role in restoring democracy after a period of tumultuous military rule and dominated the country's politics for decades died on Tuesday after a prolonged illness. She was 80.

"My mother is no more," Zia's elder son and Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) acting Chairman Trique Rahman said. Zia was BNP's chairperson.

Her personal physician, Dr AZM Zahid Hossain said she breathed her last early on Tuesday while receiving treatment at Evercare Hospital in Dhaka.

Zia was a three-time prime minister and held the position of chairperson of BNP.

BNP officials said Zia's funeral prayer was expected to be held on Wednesday at Dhaka Manik Mia Avenue in front of the parliament complex.

Zia's family members, including her elder son Tarique Rahman, his wife, Zubaida Rahman and their daughter Zaima were present at the hospital. BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was at the hospital.

Zia was admitted to Evercare Hospital on November 23 for routine tests, during which doctors detected a chest infection and decided to keep her under observation.

Her condition worsened on November 27, prompting her transfer to the hospital’s Coronary Care Unit (CCU).

In the early hours of Tuesday, Professor Hossain, a member of the medical board overseeing her treatment, had described her condition as “very critical.” Zia had been suffering from multiple complex and chronic health conditions, including liver and kidney complications, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis and infection-related problems.

As her condition deteriorated, Rahman, along with other family members, rushed to the hospital. After 2 am.

Zia's political journey, spanning over four decades, was one of tremendous highs and lows: from leading a major party and governing the country to being convicted on corruption charges and later receiving a presidential pardon.

Her rise as a public figure is widely viewed as accidental. A decade after becoming a widow at the age of 35, she assumed the role of prime minister, but her entry into politics was not planned.

She was largely unfamiliar with the political world until she was seemingly dragged into it following the assassination of her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, a military strongman turned politician, in an abortive army coup on May 30, 1981.

Before this, she was merely regarded as the wife of a general and later the First Lady. However, she quickly made her mark as the top leader of the BNP, the party her husband had founded in 1978.

She was enrolled as a primary member on January 3, 1982.

By March of the following year, she became the party's vice president, and in May 1984, BNP's Chairperson - a position she held until her death. Her main rival throughout this period was Sheikh Hasina, the chief of the Awami League.

After the 1982 military coup by the then Army chief Gen HM Ershad, Zia initiated a movement for restoring democracy.

After the fall of the Ershad regime in December 1990, a caretaker government headed by Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed conducted the elections in February 1991.

BNP emerged as the party with majority to the surprise of many who believed the Awami League would win the polls. The new parliament amended the constitution, switching to a parliamentary system from a presidential form of government, and Zia became the first woman prime minister in Bangladesh and second in the Muslim world after Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto.

BNP was re-elected to power in 1996, but the government lasted only 12 days as the Awami League staged vigorous street campaigns. Zia’s government quit after introducing the caretaker government system.

Though BNP lost the fresh election in June 1996, the party won 116 seats, becoming the largest opposition in the country's history.

In 1999, Zia formed a four-party coalition and launched agitations protesting the then-ruling Awami League government. She was re-elected in 2001. In 2006, she stepped down from office, passing power to a caretaker administration.

In September 2007, she was arrested on what her party claimed were “baseless charges of corruption”.

Zia's electoral popularity can be gauged by the fact that she never lost in any constituency. "She was elected in five separate parliamentary constituencies in the elections of 1991, 1996 and 2001, while in 2008, she won in all three constituencies from where she contested,” a BNP leader said.

Zia was born on August 15, 1946, to Taiyaba and Iskandar Majumdar in Dinajpur district in undivided India. Her father migrated from Jalpaiguri, where the family ran a tea business, to what was East Pakistan after the partition. PTI AR/AMS MPB AMS