The end of Bangladesh’s Battle of the Begums: How power, prisons and politics buried Khaleda Zia’s challenge

How Sheikh Hasina’s long rule eclipsed Khaleda Zia

• Khaleda Zia released from house arrest after Hasina's fall in August 2024
• Bangladesh Supreme Court acquitted Zia, allowing BNP to re-emerge in politics
• Khaleda Zia died at 80 after a brief comeback, leaving a legacy of resistance

Did our AI summary help?

For more than a decade, Bangladesh’s politics was shaped not by electoral contest alone but by the steady marginalisation of one of its most formidable leaders, Begum Khaleda Zia. Under Sheikh Hasina’s long rule, the former prime minister’s political life narrowed from parliamentary battles to courtrooms, prison cells, and prolonged confinement, marking a decisive shift in the country’s democratic balance.

From rivalry to one-sided dominance

The rivalry between Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, famously dubbed the ‘Battle of the Begums,’ once defined Bangladesh’s political rhythm. Both women rose from personal tragedy and alternated in power through the 1990s and early 2000s. But after Sheikh Hasina consolidated authority in the late 2000s, the contest steadily tilted into a one-sided equation.

Must read: Khaleda Zia no more: Bangladesh leader whose anti-India politics strained ties with New Delhi

Hasina emerged as Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister, presiding over economic growth, infrastructure expansion, and relative macroeconomic stability. At the same time, critics accused her government of centralising power, weakening institutions, curbing media freedom, and systematically shrinking space for the opposition, a process that most visibly played out in Khaleda Zia’s decline.

Jail, convictions, and political eclipse

The turning point came in 2018, when Khaleda Zia was convicted in a corruption case linked to the Zia Orphanage Trust and sentenced to prison. She became the only inmate held in Dhaka’s now-disused central jail, a stark symbol of her fall from power.

Her supporters consistently rejected the verdict, arguing that the charges were politically motivated and aimed at eliminating her from electoral politics. The conviction effectively barred her from contesting elections and paralysed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which struggled to function without its leader.

Conditional release and house arrest

In March 2020, amid mounting health concerns, the Hasina government allowed Khaleda Zia to leave prison. Then law minister Anisul Haq said she was released on the condition that “she remains in her Dhaka residence to receive treatment and does not go abroad.”

The conditional release translated into years of de facto house arrest. Zia remained confined to her home, unable to campaign, address supporters, or travel abroad for advanced medical care, despite repeated appeals from her family and party.

Elections without the opposition

The political marginalisation of Khaleda Zia coincided with some of Bangladesh’s most controversial elections. After Hasina’s government scrapped the caretaker system in 2011, the BNP insisted that free and fair polls were impossible under a ruling party.

The 2014 election was boycotted by the BNP, while the 2018 polls were marred by allegations of rigging, voter intimidation, and repression. International observers and rights groups raised concerns, while the opposition’s absence further entrenched Hasina’s dominance.

A rare moment of unity against military rule

Despite their deep personal and political hostility, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina were once forced into an uneasy alliance during the 1980s, when Bangladesh was under the grip of military ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad. Leading separate but parallel movements, the BNP and the Awami League coordinated street protests, nationwide hartals, and sustained civil disobedience to challenge Ershad’s authoritarian rule.

As public anger mounted and the military’s backing for Ershad weakened, the two rivals briefly set aside their animosity in pursuit of a shared goal, the restoration of democracy. The agitation peaked in 1990, when mass protests led largely by students brought the country to a standstill, eventually forcing Ershad to resign and paving the way for elections under a neutral caretaker government.

Legal reversal after Hasina’s fall

The balance shifted dramatically after Sheikh Hasina was forced from power in August 2024. Within hours, President Mohammed Shahabuddin ordered Khaleda Zia’s release from house arrest, ending years of confinement.

By early 2025, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court acquitted her in the last remaining corruption cases that had blocked her return to politics. The rulings cleared her legal slate and allowed the BNP to re-emerge as the principal political force during the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus.

A symbolic return, followed by a final farewell

Khaleda Zia’s re-entry into public life was framed as a ‘politics of return,’ first with her own homecoming after medical treatment in London, and later with the return of her son and political heir, Tarique Rahman, from long exile.

At 80, however, Zia’s comeback was brief. She died after a prolonged illness, just ahead of the scheduled elections, leaving behind a political legacy shaped as much by resistance as by repression.

Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo noted that she had “earned the epithet of the ‘uncompromising leader’”, adding, “The lives of politicians are marked by rises and falls. Lawsuits, arrests, imprisonment, persecution, and attacks by adversaries are far from uncommon. Khaleda Zia endured such ordeals at their most extreme.”

Legacy shaped by confinement and contest

Under Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, Khaleda Zia’s journey reflected the broader trajectory of Bangladesh’s opposition, from electoral challenger to political survivor. Her years of imprisonment, restricted freedom, and legal battles did not merely sideline a rival; they reshaped the country’s political landscape, leaving lasting questions about democratic competition, dissent, and the price of power in Bangladesh.