Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia died on Tuesday at the age of 80, her party said in a statement.
“BNP Chairperson and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia is no more," an official statement issued by the BNP chairperson’s press wing read.
According to the statement, Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first woman Prime Minister, passed away at 6.00 am on December 30, 2025, while undergoing treatment at Evercare Hospital in the capital, Dhaka.
The news of her death was confirmed by her personal physician and BNP National Standing Committee member Professor Dr AZM Zahid Hossain.
The BNP said several family members, senior party leaders and doctors were present at the hospital at the time of her death.
Those present included her eldest son and BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, his wife Dr Zubaida Rahman, granddaughter Zaima Rahman, her younger son’s wife Sharmili Rahman Sithi, her younger brother Shamim Eskander and his wife, elder sister Selina Islam, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, and members of the medical board formed to oversee her treatment.
The party added that the schedule for Khaleda Zia’s funeral prayers (janaza) would be announced later.
KHALEDA ZIA’s HEALTH, HOSPITALISATION, AND DEATH
Khaleda Zia had been undergoing treatment at Evercare Hospital since November 23 for multiple health complications.
Earlier this month, her doctors had described her condition as “extremely critical."
On December 11, she was placed on ventilator support “to give rest to her lungs and other vital organs," her personal physician had said during a briefing outside the hospital.
“It cannot be said that her condition has improved. She is passing through an extremely critical phase," Dr Zahid had told reporters at the time, urging people across the country to pray for her recovery.
He had added that any positive development would depend on her ability to survive the critical period.
Both local and foreign physicians were involved in Khaleda Zia’s treatment, with her daughter-in-law, Dr Zubaida Rahman, also actively participating in the medical process.
The BNP had previously stated that it preferred she be taken abroad for advanced medical care, but doctors had indicated that her physical condition did not permit air travel, necessitating continued treatment in Dhaka.
Her death comes just days after her son Tarique Rahman returned to Bangladesh from London, where he had been living in self-exile since 2008.
Tarique had visited his ailing mother at the hospital, marking their first reunion on Bangladeshi soil in more than 17 years, according to media reports.
His return drew large crowds of party supporters and was seen as a significant moment for the BNP ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
A DIVE INTO KHALEDA ZIA’s POLITICAL CAREER
Khaleda Zia, the widow of former President Ziaur Rahman, remained one of the most prominent and polarising figures in Bangladeshi politics.
As BNP chairperson and a former Prime Minister, she played a central role in shaping the country’s political discourse over several decades.
She became Bangladesh’s first female Prime Minister in 1991 and went on to develop a bitter rivalry with Sheikh Hasina as they spent decades trading power.
Though Khaleda 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.
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 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.
THE KHALEDA-HASINA RIVALRY
Despite joining hands, the cooperation between Khaleda and Hasina 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 Khaleda 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.
In 1991, Bangladesh held what was hailed as its first free election. Khaleda won a surprise victory over Hasina, having gained the support of the country’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami.
In doing so, Khaleda 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.
Khaleda 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 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 Hasina was addressing was hit by grenades. Hasina survived, but over 20 people were killed, and more than 500 were wounded. Khaleda’s government and its Islamic allies were widely blamed.
In 2018, after Hasina had reclaimed Bangladesh’s highest office, Rahman was tried in absentia and sentenced to life for the attack. The BNP denounced the trial as politically motivated.
KHALEDA’s DETENTION AND FREEDOM
Although Khaleda 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 Khaleda and 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.
Khaleda never regained power. With the BNP boycotting the 2014 and 2024 elections, her vitriolic feud with 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, Khaleda, Rahman and aides were convicted of stealing some $250,000 in foreign donations received by an orphanage trust set up when she was the 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.
Khaleda was freed from house arrest in August 2024 after Hasina’s ouster.
In early 2025, Khaleda and Rahman were acquitted by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court in the corruption case that resulted in the 2018 jail sentences.
Rahman had been acquitted of the 2004 grenade attack on Hasina a month earlier.
