page_title: Khaleda Zia
hierarchical_section_title: Khaleda Zia
caption_attribution_description: English: Begum Khaleda Zia, former Bangladesh Prime Minister and chairperson of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is photographed as she appeared as the chief guest in a book opening ceremony on 1 March, 2010 at the Diploma Engineers Institute, Dhaka. বাংলা: সাবেক প্রধানমন্ত্রী ও বাংলাদেশ জাতীয়তাবাদী দলের চেয়ারপার্সন বেগম খালেদা জিয়াকে একটি বইয়ের মোড়ক উম্মোচন অনুষ্ঠানে অংশ গ্রহণ করতে দেখা যাচ্ছে। ছবিটি ১ মার্চ, ২০১০ তারিখে রাজধানীর কাকরাইলে অবস্থিত ডিপ্লোমা ইঞ্জিনিয়ার্স ইন্সটিটিউট থেকে তোলা।
context_page_description: Khaleda Zia is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, and again from 2001 to 2006. She was the first woman in the country's history and second in the Muslim majority countries to head a democratic government as prime minister. She was the wife of a former President of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman. She is the current chairperson and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party which was founded by Rahman in the late 1970s.
  After a military coup in 1982, led by Army Chief General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, Zia helped lead the movement for democracy until the fall of Ershad in 1990. She became the prime minister following the BNP party win in the 1991 general election. She also served briefly in the short-lived government in 1996, when other parties had boycotted the first election. In the next round of general elections of 1996, the Awami League came to power. Her party came to power again in 2001. She has been elected to five separate parliamentary constituencies in the general elections of 1991, 1996 and 2001.
context_section_description: Khaleda Zia (IPA: kʰaled̪a dʒia; born Khaleda Khanam Putul in 1945) is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, and again from 2001 to 2006. She was the first woman in the country's history and second in the Muslim majority countries (after Benazir Bhutto) to head a democratic government as prime minister. She was the wife of a former President of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman. She is the current chairperson and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which was founded by Rahman in the late 1970s.
  After a military coup in 1982, led by Army Chief General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, Zia helped lead the movement for democracy until the fall of Ershad in 1990. She became the prime minister following the BNP party win in the 1991 general election. She also served briefly in the short-lived government in 1996, when other parties had boycotted the first election. In the next round of general elections of 1996, the Awami League came to power. Her party came to power again in 2001. She has been elected to five separate parliamentary constituencies in the general elections of 1991, 1996 and 2001.
  In its list of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World, Forbes magazine ranked Zia at number 14 in 2004, number 29 in 2005, and number 33 in 2006.
  Following her government's term end in 2006, the scheduled January 2007 elections were delayed due to political violence and in-fighting, resulting in a bloodless military takeover of the caretaker government. During its interim rule, it charged Zia and her two sons with corruption.
  Since the 1980s, Zia's chief rival has been Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina. Since 1991, they have been the only two serving as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
  In February 2018, Zia was jailed for a total of 17 years for the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case and Zia Charitable Trust corruption case. She was found guilty of embezzling funds for the orphanage trusts set up while she had been serving as the prime minister. She was transferred to a hospital for medical treatment in April 2019. In March 2020, she was released for six months on humanitarian grounds with the conditions that she would stay at her home in Gulshan, Dhaka.
caption: Begum Zia in 2010
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