DHAKA (Kashmir English): Bangladesh’s first female prime minister, Khaleda Zia, died at a local hospital today (December 30, 2025), at the age of 80 after a prolonged illness.
“Our favourite leader is no longer with us. She left us at 6am this morning,” Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) announced on Facebook.
On Monday night, physicians said that Zia’s condition was “extremely critical”. She was put on life support, but it was not possible to provide multiple treatments at the same time given her age and overall poor health, they said.
Khaleda Zia became the country’s first female prime minister in 1991 after leading the BNP to victory in the country’s first democratic election in 20 years.
Khaleda had been suffering from multiple chronic and complex health conditions for several years. She had advanced cirrhosis of the liver, chest and heart problems, arthritis, and diabetes, her doctors said.
According to her party, she died at 6:00 a.m. (Fajr) at Evercare Hospital in the capital, Dhaka.
Political legacy of Khaleda Zia
Khaleda served as the country’s Prime Minister for three terms: 1991–1996, a brief period in 1996, and 2001–2006.
She was the first woman to lead Bangladesh and the second female head of the government in the Muslim world.
After the assassination of her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, in 1981, Khaleda took leadership of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 1984.
In 2018, she was sentenced to 17 years in jail on corruption charges, which she maintained were politically motivated.
She was released from house arrest on humanitarian grounds in 2020 and officially pardoned in August 2024 following the resignation of her rival, Sheikh Hasina.
