Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, whose arch-rivalry with another former premier defined the country’s politics for a generation, has died aged 80, her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said in a statement. 

Ms Zia was the first woman elected prime minister of Bangladesh.

She had faced corruption cases she said were politically motivated, but in January 2025 the Supreme Court acquitted Ms Zia in the last corruption case against her, which would have let her run in February's general election.

The BNP said that after she was released from prison due to illness in 2020, her family requested the administration of her arch rival, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, at least 18 times to allow her to be treated abroad, but the requests were rejected.

Following Ms Hasina's ouster in 2024, an interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus finally allowed her to go. 

She went to London in January and returned to Bangladesh in May.

Ms Zia had advanced cirrhosis of the liver, arthritis, diabetes, and chest and heart problems, her doctors said.

Many believed Khaleda Zia would sweep elections next year to lead her country once again. (AP: A.M. Ahad/File)

Though Ms Zia had been out of power since 2006 and had spent several years in jail or under house arrest, she and her centre-right BNP continued to command much support.

The BNP is seen as the frontrunner to win the parliamentary election slated to take place in February. 

Her son and acting chairman of the party, Tarique Rahman, 60, returned to the country last week from nearly 17 years in self-exile and is widely seen as a strong candidate to become prime minister.

Since August 2024, after a student-led uprising led to the ouster of Ms Hasina, Bangladesh has been run by an interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel peace laureate and microfinance pioneer.

In November, Ms Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia for her deadly crackdown on the student protests.

Khaleda Zia waves at the start of a 400-kilometre protest march from Dhaka to the northern village of Dinajpur in 1999.  (AP: Pavel Rahman)

Known by her first name, Khaleda was described as shy and devoted to raising her two sons until her husband, military leader and then-President Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in an attempted army coup in 1981.

Three years later she became the head of the BNP, which her husband had founded, and vowed to deliver on his aim of "liberating Bangladesh from poverty and economic backwardness".

She joined hands with Ms Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh's founding father and head of the Awami League party, to lead a popular uprising for democracy that toppled military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad in 1990.

Battling Begums

But their cooperation did not last long. Their bitter rivalry would lead to the two being dubbed "the battling Begums" — a phrase that uses an Urdu honorific for prominent women.

Supporters saw her as polite and traditional yet quietly stylish, someone who chose her words carefully. 

But they also viewed her as a bold, uncompromising leader when it came to defending her party and confronting her rivals.

Ms Hasina, by contrast, was far more outspoken and assertive. Their opposite personalities helped fuel the rivalry that dominated Bangladesh's politics for decades.

Zia was jailed for corruption in 2018 under the government of rival Sheikh Hasina (pictured), which also blocked her from travelling abroad for medical treatment. (Reuters: Wolfgang Rattay)

In 1991, Bangladesh held what was hailed as its first free election. Ms Zia won a surprise victory over Ms Hasina, having gained the support of the country's largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami.

In doing so, Ms Zia became Bangladesh's first female prime minister and only the second woman to lead a democratic government of a mainly Muslim nation after Benazir Bhutto, elected to lead Pakistan three years earlier.

Ms Zia replaced the presidential system with a parliamentary one, so that power rested with the prime minister. She also lifted restrictions on foreign investment and made primary education compulsory and free.

She lost to Ms Hasina in the 1996 general election but came back five years later with a surprise landslide win.

Her second term was marred by the rise of Islamist militants and allegations of corruption.

In 2004, a rally that Ms Hasina was addressing was hit by grenades. Ms Hasina survived but over 20 people were killed and more than 500 wounded. Ms Zia's government and its Islamic allies were widely blamed.

In 2018, after Ms Hasina had reclaimed Bangladesh's highest office, Mr Rahman was tried in absentia and sentenced to life for the attack. 

The BNP denounced the trial as politically motivated.

Detention and freedom

Although Ms Zia later clamped down on Islamist radical groups, her second stint as prime minister ended in 2006 when an army-backed interim government took power amid political instability and street violence.

The interim government jailed both Ms Zia and Ms Hasina on charges of corruption and abuse of power for about a year before they were both released ahead of a general election in 2008.

Ms Zia never regained power. 

With the BNP boycotting the 2014 and 2024 elections, her vitriolic feud with Ms Hasina continued to dominate Bangladeshi politics.

Tension between their two parties often led to strikes, violence and deaths, impeding the economic development of Bangladesh, a poverty-stricken country of about 175 million that is low-lying and prone to devastating floods.

In 2018, Ms Zia, Mr Rahman and aides were convicted of stealing some $250,000 in foreign donations received by an orphanage trust set up when she was last prime minister — charges that she said were part of a plot to keep her and her family out of politics.

She was jailed but moved to house arrest in March 2020 on humanitarian grounds as her health deteriorated.

Ms Zia was freed from house arrest in August 2024 after Hasina's ouster.

In early 2025, Ms Zia and Mr Rahman were acquitted by Bangladesh's Supreme Court in the corruption case that resulted in the 2018 jail sentences. 

Mr Rahman had been acquitted of the 2004 grenade attack on Ms Hasina a month earlier.

Reuters/AP