Bangladesh’s first female prime minister Khaleda Zia has died at the age of 80 after suffering from prolonged illness.<\/p>\n
Zia became Bangladesh’s first female head of government in 1991 after leading her party to victory in the country’s first democratic election in 20 years. <\/p>\n
Physicians had said on Monday said her condition was “extremely critical”. She was put on life support, but it was not possible to provide multiple treatments at the same time given her age and overall poor health, they said.<\/p>\n
Despite her poor health, her party had earlier said that Zia would contest general elections expected in February, the first since a revolution which led to the ousting of Zia’s rival, Sheikh Hasina.<\/p>\n
Bangladeshi politics had for decades been defined by the bitter feud between the two women, who alternated between government and opposition.<\/p>\n
“Our favourite leader is no longer with us. She left us at 6am this morning,” Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) announced on Facebook on Monday. <\/p>\n
Crowds gathered outside Evercare Hospital in Dhaka where Zia was warded after news of her death broke. Photographs show police officers trying to stop them from entering the hospital premises.<\/p>\n
Zia first came into public attention as the wife of Bangladesh’s former president Ziaur Rahman. Following his assassination in a 1981 military coup, Zia entered politics and later rose to lead the BNP.<\/p>\n
After a second term in 1996 that lasted just a few weeks, Zia returned to the post of prime minister in 2001, stepping down in October 2006 ahead of a general election.<\/p>\n
Her political career had been marred by corruption allegations and a long-standing political rivalry with Awami League leader Hasina.<\/p>\n