Zia, Begum Khaleda (1945– )

Bangladeshi conservative politician, prime minister 1991–96. As leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) from 1984, she successfully oversaw the transition from presidential to democratic parliamentary government, but faced mounting opposition from 1994.

In 1958 she married Captain Zia ur Rahman who assumed power in a military coup in 1976. He became president in 1977, and was assassinated in 1981. Begum Khaleda Zia then entered opposition politics, becoming leader of the BNP in 1984. In 1990 she helped form a seven-party alliance, whose pressure for a more democratic regime resulted in the toppling of General Ershad, a long-standing military ruler, during whose regime she had been detained seven times. From December 1994 she faced a mounting campaign against her government, with opposition MPs boycotting parliament and the longest general strike in the country's history being called. The opposition boycotted the February 1996 general elections, and one month later she handed over power to a neutral coalition government to enable fresh elections to be held. The BNP was defeated by its chief rival, the Awami League, in the general election that followed in June 1996, and boycotted the parliament for four months 1997–98.