Begum Khaleda Zia (Born 15 August 1945) is a Bangladeshi politician who was the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006. When she took office in 1991, she was the first woman in the country's history and second in the Muslim world (after Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan in 1988–1990) to head a democratic government as prime minister. Khaleda Zia was the First Lady of Bangladesh during the presidency of her husband Ziaur Rahman. She is the 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, Khaleda Zia helped lead the continuing movement for democracy until the fall of military dictator Ershad in 1990. Khaleda became prime minister following the victory of the BNP in the 1991 general election. She also served briefly in the short-lived government in 1996, when other parties had boycottedthe 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 Khaleda 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 Khaleda Zia and her two sons with corruption.

For the better part of the last two decades, Khaleda's chief rival has been Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina. The two women have alternated as non-interim prime ministers since 1991.

Sheikh Hasina Wazed (28 September 1947 - Present)

Sheikh Hasina Wazed (Bengali: শেখ হাসিনা; English: Sheikh Hasina; born 28 September 1947)^[4] is the currentPrime Minister of Bangladesh, in office since January 2009. She previously served as Prime Minister from 1996 to 2001, and she has led the Bangladesh Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first President of Bangladesh, and widow of the nuclear scientist M. A. Wazed Miah.

Hasina's political career has spanned more than four decades during which she has been both Prime Minister and opposition leader. As opposition leader, she was the target of an assassination attempt in 2004. In 2007, she was arrested for corruption and charged with murder by the military-backed Caretaker Government during the 2006–2008 Bangladeshi political crisis, when the generals imposed a state of emergency. She returned as Prime Minister after a landslide victory for the Awami League-led Grand Alliance in2008, when they took two-thirds of the seats in parliament. In January 2014 she became the prime minister for the third time after winning the 2014 parliamentary election, which was boycotted by the main opposition BNP-led alliance. Hasina is considered one of the most powerful women in the world, ranking 47th on Forbes' list of the 100 most powerful women in the world.

Early Life

Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, first president of Bangladesh, and Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib. From the village of Tungipara, where she grew up, Hasina had been born into the violence during the 1947 Partition. As she said in many interviews that she had grown up in fear due to her father's political works. During the peak of violence of the 1970 Elections in Pakistan as well as her father's arrest she had lived in refuge with her grandmother. Saying "I was not allowed to go to the school. Because I had to cross the canal by a wooden bridge, she was very much afraid that if I fall from this wooden bridge I will fall in the river". Hasina was not in Bangladesh when her father was assassinated on 15 August 1975. She was not allowed to return to the country until after she was elected to lead the Awami League Party in February 1981 and arrived on 17 May 1981.

While living in self-exile in India after her father and family's assassination in 1975 (only she and a sister survived as they were in West Germany), Hasina was elected President of the Bangladesh Awami League in 1981. After she returned to Bangladesh, President Ziaur Rahman was assassinated on 30 May 1981 in an attempted military coup. General Hossain Mohammad Ershad and most of the army remained loyal to the government. The following year, Ershad captured power through a bloodless coup and declared martial law, suppressing political party activity and suspending the constitution. The constitution was later restored in 1986 after the general election won by General Ershad's Jatiya Party won, and martial law was withdrawn.

Hasina was in and out of detention throughout the 1980s. In 1984, Hasina was put under house arrest in February and again in November. In March 1985, she was put under house arrest for three months. Her party, along with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Ziaur Rahman's widow Khaleda Zia, continued to work to restore democratically elected government, which they achieved by the democratic election in 1991, won by the BNP.

Hasina and the Awami League participated in the 1986 parliamentary elections held under President Ershad. She served as the leader of the opposition in 1986–1987. Hasina's decision to take part in the election had been criticised by her opponents, since the election was held under the martial law, and the other main opposition group, led by Khaleda Zia, boycotted the poll. However, her supporters maintained that she used the platform effectively to challenge Ershad's rule. Ershad dissolved the parliament in December 1987 when Hasina and her Awami League resigned from the parliament in an attempt to call for a fresh general election to be held under a neutral government. During November and December in 1987, mass uprising happened in Dhaka, several people were killed including Noor Hossain, a Hasina supporter.

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ZIAUR RAHMAN (19 January 1936 – 30 May 1981)

Ziaur Rahman, Bir Uttam, (Bengali: জিয়াউর রহমান Ji-yaur Rôhman) (19 January 1936 – 30 May 1981), a career military officer He formed and was commander of the Central Sector, BDF Sector 11, during the nations war of independence in 1971. Later turned politician, he formed one of the largest political parties, the BNP, and became the seventh President of Bangladesh in 1977. During the independence war in 1971, he was first sector commander of BDF Sector 1, before being posted to Teldhala. Later in August, he organised a separate unit, Z Force, after his first initial, and commanded it along with Sector 11 until October 10, 1971. A highly decorated and accomplished military officer, he was awarded Bir Uttom, the highest gallantry award for a living officer for his wartime services, and retired from the Bangladesh Army as aLieutenant General.[1] He later became the seventh President of Bangladesh from 1977 until 1981. During his administration, he founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the two largest political parties in the country. He is popularly known as Shaheed President Zia, meaning "martyred Zia," in reference to his 1981 assassination. He personally informed Mujibur Rahman about the problems in military ranks, morale and allegiance. 

Early Life

Ziaur Rahman, popularly known as Zia, was the second son of Mansur Rahman and Jahanara Khatun. His father was a chemist who specialised in paper and ink chemistry and worked for a government department at Writer's Building in Kolkata. As a child Ziaur Rahman, nicknamed Komol, was reserved, shy, quietly spoken, and intense in many respects. He was raised in a village named Gabtoli, in Bogra, British India.

In 1946, Mansur Rahman, for a short stint, enrolled Zia in one of the leading boys schools of Calcutta—Hare School—where Zia studied until the dissolution of the British Empire in South Asia and creation of India in 1947. On 14 August 1947, Mansur Rahman, became a citizen of Pakistan, like many Muslims working for the former British government in India, exercised his option to become a citizen of a muslim majority Pakistan and moved to Karachi,[3] the first capital of Pakistan located in Sindh, West Pakistan. Zia, at the age of 11, had become a student in class 6(six) at the Academy School in Karachi in 1947. Zia spent his adolescent years in Karachi and by age 15 completed his secondary education from that School in 1951.

In 1951, Zia was admitted into the D.J. College in Karachi. After almost two years of studies there, in 1953, at the age of 17 and a half, he joined the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul as an officer cadet. Zia's character and style as one of the most effective leaders in the colonised world was largely shaped by the issues, attitudes, and events during his years at the Academy School.

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The Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975) is the architect of independent Bangladesh. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the founding leader of Bangladesh. He was the head of state of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh and became the Prime Minister of Bangladesh in 1972.       




Political Carrer

Mujib left the Muslim League to join Suhrawardy, Maulana Bhashani and Yar Mohammad Khan in the formation of the Awami Muslim League, the predecessor of the Awami League. He was elected joint secretary of its East Bengal unit in 1949. While Suhrawardy worked to build a larger coalition of East Bengali and socialist parties, Mujib focused on expanding the grassroots organisation. In 1953, he was made the party's general secretary, and elected to the East Bengal Legislative Assembly on a United Front coalition ticket in 1954. Serving briefly as the minister for agriculture during A. K. Fazlul Huq's government, Mujib was briefly arrested for organising a protest of the central government's decision to dismiss the United Front ministry.