Bangladesh's uncompromising former prime minister, Khaleda Zia, has been freed from years of house arrest after her arch-rival, Sheikh Hasina, was ousted as prime minister and fled when protesters stormed her palace.
The fierce rivalry between the two women has defined politics in this Muslim-majority country for decades.
Zia, 78, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption in 2018 under Hasina's government.
Hasina, 76, was ousted on Monday (August 5) after mass protests, with the armed forces chief declaring that the military would form an interim government.
Orders were then issued to release the detained protesters, as well as Zia. Zia is the head of the main opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP). Party spokesman AKM Wahiduzzaman told AFP on Tuesday that Zia “has now been released.”
He was in poor health, having to use a wheelchair due to suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and battling diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver.
A decades-long feud
The feud between Zia and Hasina is widely known in Bangladesh as the “Battle of the Begums.” “Begum” is a South Asian honorific for powerful Muslim women.
Their feud has its roots in the assassination of Hasina's father, Bangladesh's founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, along with her mother, three brothers and several other relatives in a military coup in 1975.
Zia's husband, Ziaur Rahman, was then deputy army chief and effectively took power three months later. He began economic recovery in poverty-stricken Bangladesh with privatization, but was killed in another military coup in 1981.
The leadership of the BNP fell into the hands of his widow, then a 35-year-old mother of two sons who was regarded by detractors as a politically inexperienced housewife.
Zia led the opposition to dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad, boycotting a sham election in 1986 and supporting street protests. He and Hasina joined forces to oust Ershad in a wave of protests in 1990 and later contested Bangladesh's first three free elections.
Zia won and ruled from 1991-1996, and again in 2001-2006, when he and Hasina alternated in power.
Dislike each other
Their dislike for each other was blamed for the political crisis in January 2007 that prompted the military to declare a state of emergency and form an interim government.
Both were detained for more than a year. Hasina won a landslide victory in December 2008 and led the party until she fled to India by helicopter on Monday. She tightened her grip on power by detaining tens of thousands of BNP members. Hundreds of people also disappeared.
Zia was convicted and jailed in 2018 on corruption charges that her party denied were politically motivated. She was later released under house arrest on condition that she not participate in politics or travel abroad for medical treatment.
Son in exile
Zia's first cabinet was credited with liberalizing Bangladesh's economy in the early 1990s, sparking decades of growth. But his second term as prime minister of an Islamist-aligned coalition was marked by allegations of corruption against his government and his sons.
There were also a series of Islamist attacks, one of which killed more than 20 people and nearly claimed Hasina's life.
Zia's anti-crime police unit, the Rapid Action Battalion, has been accused of hundreds of extrajudicial killings. Her eldest son, Tarique Rahman, led the BNP from exile in London while Zia was in prison, but Rahman was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison for his alleged role in a bomb attack on a Hasina rally in 2004.
The BNP said the charges were a politically motivated attempt to remove the Zia dynasty from politics.
Zia was respected for her tough stance, although her inability to compromise kept her from reaching agreements with key allies at home and abroad. Her stubbornness continued even after her youngest son died of a heart attack in Malaysia in 2015.
Hasina went to her house to express her sympathy and condolences, but Zia did not open the door. (my/uh)
