Zia, 78, was sentenced to 17 years in prison under Sheikh Hasina’s rule.
Bangladesh’s hard-nosed former prime minister, Khaleda Zia, was freed from years of house arrest after her nemesis, Sheikh Hasina, was ousted as prime minister and fled when protesters stormed her palace.
The fierce rivalry between the two women – born in blood and cemented in prison – defined politics in the Muslim-majority nation 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 following mass protests, with the army chief declaring that the military would form an interim government.
Orders were then issued for the release of protest prisoners, as well as Zia.
Zia is president of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP). Party spokesman AKM Wahiduzzaman told AFP on Tuesday that she “is now free”.
She is in poor health, confined to a wheelchair with rheumatoid arthritis and battling diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver.
Decades-long conflict
The enmity between Zia and Hasina is popularly known in Bangladesh as the “Battle of Begums”, “begum” being a South Asian Muslim honorific for powerful women.
Their rivalry has its roots in the murder of Hasina’s father – the country’s founding leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – along with her mother, three brothers and several other family members in a 1975 military coup.
Zia’s husband, Ziaur Rahman, was then deputy army chief and effectively took control three months later.
He began economic recovery in poverty-stricken Bangladesh with privatizations, but was killed in another military coup in 1981.
The BNP mantle fell to his widow, then 35, mother of two young children, who was considered by critics to be a politically inexperienced housewife.
Zia led the opposition to dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad, boycotting sham elections in 1986 and mounting street protests.
She and Hasina joined forces to oust Ershad in a wave of protests in 1990 and then faced off in Bangladesh’s first free elections.
Zia won and led from 1991-96 and again in 2001-2006, while she and Hasina alternated in power.
Mutual dislike
Their mutual antipathy was blamed for the January 2007 political crisis that led the military to impose emergency rules and establish a provisional government. Both were detained for more than a year.
Hasina won elections in December 2008 by a landslide and led uninterruptedly until fleeing to India in a helicopter on Monday.
She strengthened her power by detaining tens of thousands of BNP members. Hundreds also disappeared.
Zia was convicted and jailed in 2018 on corruption charges that her party dismissed as politically motivated.
She was later placed under house arrest with the condition that she not participate in politics or go abroad for medical treatment.
Son in exile
Zia’s first cabinet was acclaimed for liberalizing Bangladesh’s economy in the early 1990s, unleashing decades of growth.
However, her second term as prime minister of an allied Islamist coalition was marked by allegations of corruption against her government and her children.
There were also a series of Islamist attacks, one of which killed more than 20 people and nearly claimed Hasina’s life.
The Rapid Action Battalion anti-crime police unit that Zia created has been accused of hundreds of extrajudicial executions.
Her eldest son, Tarique Rahman, led the BNP from exile in London while she was in prison, but 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 claims the charges were a politically motivated attempt to oust the Zia dynasty from politics.
Zia gained respect for her resolute attitude, although her inability to compromise prevented her from reaching deals with important allies at home or abroad.
This challenge extended to the death of his youngest son due to a heart attack in Malaysia in 2015.
Hasina went to her house to offer condolences and condolences, but Zia did not open the door.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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