Former Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia dies at 80 after decades shaping national politics

Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister of Bangladesh whose long-running political rivalry with Sheikh Hasina dominated the country’s public life for more than three decades, has died at the age of 80. Her Bangladesh Nationalist Party confirmed her death in a statement released Tuesday.

Zia served two terms as prime minister and was a central figure in Bangladesh’s transition from military rule to parliamentary democracy. Her political career was closely intertwined with that of Hasina, leader of the Awami League, with the two women alternating in power and shaping the nation’s often turbulent political landscape from the early 1990s onward.

In recent years, Zia had been largely absent from frontline politics due to health issues and a series of corruption cases that she and her supporters described as politically motivated. In January 2025, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court acquitted her in the final case, clearing a legal barrier that could have allowed her to contest national elections scheduled for February of that year.

She returned to Bangladesh in May after receiving medical treatment in the United Kingdom. Earlier in January, the country’s interim government approved her request to travel abroad, a decision that followed repeated denials under the previous administration.

Zia entered politics after the assassination of her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, who was killed during a failed military coup in 1981. She later helped mobilize opposition to military rule, contributing to the mass movement that led to the restoration of democracy in 1990. She was first elected prime minister in 1991 and returned to office from 2001 to 2006, with Hasina as her main political opponent in multiple elections.