(b. 1945), prime minister of Bangladesh. Khaleda Zia, the widow of former Bangladesh president Ziaur Rahman Zia (1936–1981), was born in Jalpaiguri (now in West Bengal, India), although her family was from the Feni district in Bangladesh. After her husband Zia's assassination in 1981, his party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was without a leader and selected Khaleda as chairperson on 10 March 1984. As such, she was a leader of the opposition to the military regime of Hussain Muhammad Ershad along with Sheikh Hasina Wajid of the Awami League. The two frequently clashed with each other as well as with Ershad, but in late 1990 they united and brought about Ershad's fall. Following the election in February 1991, Khaleda became prime minister on 20 March 1991, an office sheheld until March 1996. In the June 1996 election, the BNP finished behind the Awami League and Khaleda became leader of the opposition. The enmity since 1991 between the BNP and Awami League has impeded the governance of Bangladesh. In 1999 the BNP formed an alliance with the Jatiya Party faction headed by Ershad and the Jama ʿat-e-Islami, an Islamic fundamentalist party, to attempt to destroy the Awami League government and prepare for the October 2001 parliamentary election. The alliance subsequently won by a substantial majority in the election.
Khaleda Zia appears before the media in Dhaka on 2 October 2001 when it became clear that the election would make her the next prime minister of Bangladesh. (REUTERS NEWMEDIA/CORBIS)
Further Reading
Baxter, Craig. (1997) Bangladesh from Nation to a State. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Hakim, S. Abdul. (1992) Begum Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh: APolitical Biography. New Delhi: Vikase.
This is the complete article, containing 274 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
