Khaleda Zia, first woman PM of Bangladesh, passes away at 80 after prolonged illness
PTC News Desk: Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first female Prime Minister, passed away on Tuesday following a long period of illness, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) announced. She was 80 years old.
According to her doctors, she had been battling several age-related health conditions, including advanced liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and heart and chest complications. Zia had been receiving treatment at Evercare Hospital in Dhaka since November 23 and was put on ventilator support on December 11. Only two days earlier, her personal physician had stated that her condition was “extremely critical.”
In a Facebook post, the BNP said that doctors declared the former Prime Minister dead at around 6 am today.
"Her condition had deteriorated since late Monday night. A special aircraft from Qatar had been kept on standby to airlift her to London for further treatment, but a medical board did not grant clearance for her transfer from Evercare Hospital to Dhaka airport," the post read.
Zia served as Prime Minister twice—first from 1991 to 1996 and later from 2001 to 2006. She made history as Bangladesh’s first woman Prime Minister and became the second woman, after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, to head a democratically elected government in a Muslim-majority country.
She was married to Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh’s sixth President and a key leader of the 1971 Liberation War. Rahman founded the BNP in 1977, four years before his assassination in May 1981.
In 1984, Khaleda Zia was elected chairperson of the BNP. Under her leadership, the party spearheaded a strong movement against the military-backed regime of HM Ershad, who seized power in 1982. During Ershad’s nearly nine-year rule, Zia was detained at least seven times.
- With inputs from agencies
