Begum Khaleda Zia was
born on 15 August 1945.
She was the third among the five children of her parents. She passed
her Matriculation Examination from Dinajpur Government School and
got admitted to Surendranath College, Dinajpur. She was married
in August 1960 to Ziaur Rahman, then a Captain in the Pakistan Army,
who proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh in March 1971 and
later became the President of the Republic in 1977.
It
was the tragic death of her husband, in May 1981, that brought her
into the mainstream of national politics, and eventually to the
seat of power. She had to earn it at an immense cost of personal
sacrifices. She encountered personal tragedies in the assassination
of her husband, was arrested eight times in nine years and had to
continually undergo harassment and repression at the hands of an
autocratic regime. But nothing could deter her from her mission
of freeing the nation from autocratic rule and reestablishing a
democratic polity in the country.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which her husband had founded,
and the people at large looked towards her for leadership at a critical
juncture of the nation. She stood resolutely, took the reins of
the BNP and with likeminded pro-democratic parties and elements,
formed the 7-party alliance and started an uncompromising resistance
against the usurper of people's rights.
In the parliamentary elections that followed on 27 February 1991
under a Non-Party Caretaker Government, Begum Zia led her party
to a thumping victory, herself emerging as the popular political
leader of the country. On March 20, 1991 she was sworn in as the
country's first woman Prime Minister in a presidential form of government.
Respecting the wishes of the people, Begum Zia and her party took
the lead in switching over from the presidential to the parliamentary
system of government in order to give the country's hard-won democracy
a permanent institutional shape. She formally took over as the Head
of Government on 19 September 1991 under the parliamentary system.
Begum Zia's "Daal-Bhaat" (lentil and rice) approach received both
regional and international acceptance as a tangible programme for
poverty alleviation in SAARC countries as well as in other developing
nations.
She became Prime Minister for the second consecutive term after
the February 1996 general elections.
Her administration introduced the Caretaker Government concept for
holding neutral and free elections through the 13th amendment to
the Constitution in 1996.
The government of Khaleda Zia made tangible progress in empowering
the huge number of rural women in the country. Her government brought
about major reforms in the education sector that included introduction
of compulsory free primary education, free education for girl students,
stipends for girl students and the food for education programme.
Side by side, she initiated bold reforms to revitalize the national
economy, accelerate production in all sectors and to alleviate poverty.
Agriculture, the mainstay of Bangladesh's economy, was given the
main thrust to achieve autarky in food production in the shortest
possible time.
Promoting good neighbourly relations, strengthening regional cooperation
within the ambit of SAARC, strict adherence to the UN Charter and
furthering world peace and amity were the cornerstones of her government's
foreign policy.
In the 1996 polls, the BNP emerged as the largest opposition party
in the country's parliamentary history with 116 seats. The party
under the leadership of Begum Zia formed a four-party opposition
alliance on January 6, 1999.
The four-party alliance participated in the October 1, 2001 general
elections held under a Non-Party Caretaker Government and won the
polls with a two-thirds majority. Begum Khaleda Zia was sworn in
on 10 October, 2001 as the Prime Minister of the Government of the
People's Republic of Bangladesh for the third time
She has two sons. Her hobbies include reading, listening to music
and gardening.
