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

• Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh's first female prime minister died on Tuesday aged 80 years
• She first became prime minister in 1991
• She was the dominating figure in Bangladeshi politics for two decades

Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first female prime minister, passed away on Tuesday due to illness. She was 80. Khaleda initially became prime minister in 1991 and later became instrumental in Bangladesh’s politics due to her opposition ties with Sheikh Hasina, whereby the two leaders would alternate in positions of power for many years.

Though Khaleda herself had not been in politics since 2006 and had spent several years either in jail or under house arrest, she was still a major political force, and her party, BNP, had a strong support base.

The country has had a care-taker government, led by a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, since August of this year, after the ousting of Sheikh Hasina in the wake of student demonstrations. In November, the latter was given a death sentence in absentia for how it handled the demonstrations.

Khaleda won the first free election that gained worldwide recognition in the country in 1991. She became the first woman prime minister of Bangladesh and the second woman to become the head of a democratic administration in the Muslim-majority state.

She was overthrown in 1996 but regained her position with a landslide victory in the following elections of 2001.

Her second term was marred by growing militancy and allegations of corruption. At the end of her tenure, a grenade attack on a meeting that she was addressing in 2004, where more than 20 people lost their lives, brought widespread condemnation of Khaleda’s government and her allies.

However, Zia soon launched a crackdown against the extremist forces. She was ousted by an interim government formed by the military in 2006 due to instability.

Both Khaleda and Hasina had been held on corruption charges in 2007 and released before the election of 2008. Zia never came back to power, and the BNP's election boycott further worsened the economic development due to political instability.