{"id":662154,"date":"2025-12-30T09:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662154\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T09:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:20:12","slug":"bangladeshs-first-female-prime-minister-khaleda-zia-dies-at-80-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662154\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladesh’s first female prime minister Khaleda Zia dies at 80 | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bangladesh’s first female prime minister Khaleda Zia has died following a prolonged illness, her political party has said.<\/p>\n

Ms Zia led the country as head of the Bangladesh<\/strong><\/a> Nationalist Party (BNP) from 1991 to 1996, and again from 2001 to 2006.<\/p>\n

During her years in and out of power, the nation’s politics came to be defined by her bitter feud with rival Sheikh Hasina.<\/p>\n

The two women alternated between government and opposition – and Ms Zia served time in prison over corruption charges, but was acquitted earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\"Pic:<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Pic: AP Photo\/Saurabh Das 2008<\/p>\n

The BNP announced her death in posts shared on social media on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

She had been suffering from ill health in recent years, including advanced cirrhosis of the liver, arthritis, diabetes, and chest and heart problems, doctors said.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of 2025 she travelled to London for medical treatment, staying for four months before returning home.<\/p>\n

Before her career in politics, Ms Zia was a wife and mother devoted to raising \u200dher two sons, until her husband, military leader and then president Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in an attempted army coup in 1981.<\/p>\n

She became head of the BNP, founded by her husband, three years later, and vowed to deliver on his aim of “liberating Bangladesh from poverty and economic backwardness”.<\/p>\n

\"Sheikh<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Sheikh Hasina, pictured in 2019, followed Ms Zia as prime minister. File pic: AP<\/p>\n

At the time, both she and Ms Hasina led a popular uprising for democracy that toppled military ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad in 1990.<\/p>\n

The following year, Bangladesh held what was hailed as the country’s first free election – with Ms Zia winning a surprise victory over Ms Hasina, becoming the country’s first female prime minister, and years of bitter rivalry beginning.<\/p>\n

In 2018, when Ms Hasina was in power, Ms Zia and aides were convicted of stealing some $250,000 in foreign donations \u200breceived by an orphanage trust set up during her second term as prime minister.<\/p>\n

She was jailed but moved to house arrest on humanitarian grounds in March 2020, as her health deteriorated.<\/p>\n

Read more from Sky News:
New Year Honours revealed<\/a>
Sky News quiz of the year<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms Hasina, who led the country from 1996 to 2001 and again from 2009 to 2024, was ousted in a mass uprising and fled the country in August 2024<\/strong><\/a> – and Ms Zia was freed from house arrest.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, she was acquitted by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Though Ms Zia had been out of power for almost 20 years, she and her party continued to command much support.<\/p>\n

The BNP is \u2060seen as the frontrunner to win the next parliamentary election set to take place in February – and her eldest son and acting chairman of the party, Tarique Rahman, 60, is widely seen as a strong candidate to become \u200bprime minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bangladesh’s first female prime minister Khaleda Zia has died following a prolonged illness, her political party has said.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-662154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115807782556953179","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}