Thrice-former prime minister and icon of democracy, Begum Khaleda Zia, passed away Tuesday morning while under treatment at the capital’s Evercare Hospital. She was 80.
The chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) breathed her last at 6am on Tuesday, according to A.K.M. Wahiduzzaman, the party’s ICT Affairs Secretary and head of its Online Activists Network.
The BNP Media Cell’s verified Facebook page has since confirmed it.
Earlier Tarique Rahman and close relatives including Zubaida and Zaima Rahman, had visited Begum Zia at the hospital and left around 1.55am, after which Dr Zahid Hossain, the BNP’s standing committee member, had briefed the press that she was passing through “an extremely critical phase.”
Begum Zia, who was also the widow of ex-president Ziaur Rahman, saw her health deteriorate rapidly since late last month - she was admitted to Evercare Hospital on November 23 for the last time.
An icon of the pro-democracy movement throughout the 1980s, she became the country`s first female head of government and prime minister, through the election it led to in 1991.
She was famous for having never lost an election, although she last ran in 2008.
Her status as a symbol of uncompromising defiance against authoritarian rule became sealed during her years in opposition to the last Awami League regime, that had her jailed, till the triumph of the student-led movement last year saw her released and the verdict against her overturned.
She spent her last days as the country`s elder statesman, always insisting on the people remaining united and shunning the path of revenge.
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