Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh's First Female Prime Minister, Dies at 80

By: WE staff | Tuesday, 30 December 2025

• Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh's first female prime minister, passed away on Tuesday aged 80
• She first took office as Prime Minister in 1991
• She was one of the leading figures in Bangladeshi politics for almost two decades

Former prime minister of Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia, who was the first woman prime minister of the nation, died on Tuesday due to an illness.

Khaleda was 80 years old at the time of her death. After being prime minister of the country in 1991, she got included in the top politics of the country, mainly due to her rivalry with Sheikh Hasina.

Although Khaleda was not involved in politics since 2006 and had been spending the last years of her life in jail or under house arrest, she was nevertheless a very prominent political figure in her country. Her political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had a massive following.

In Bangladesh, the government is led by an interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, since the last deposed leader, Sheikh, was overthrown in an outbreak of protests led by students. In November, Sheikh was handed the death penalty in absentia in respect of the protests and their treatment by the government.

Khaleda won the first free and fair election in Bangladesh in 1991 and became the country's first lady prime minister and second female leader of a democratic government in a Muslim-majority state.

Khaleda was ousted from her position in 1996; however, she came back to power with a landslide victory in the election of 2001.

Her second term saw an increase in militancy and charges of corruption. In 2004, there was a grenade attack at a rally where she was speaking, killing over 20 people, prompting widespread condemnation of her administration and other supporters. Later, she introduced strategies to control the acts of extremism.

Political instability resulted in her removal from government by an interim government led by the military in 2006. Both Khaleda Zia and Sheikh were arrested on charges of corruption in 2007 and were discharged before the election in 2008.

Khaleda did not return to government after this and the subsequent election boycotts by BNP resulted in political instability and economic problems in the country.