Power vacuum? Hasina’s archrival Khaleda Zia passes away - What it means for Bangladesh polls

The death of Khaleda Zia closes one of the most dominant and polarising chapters in Bangladesh’s political history, and throws the country’s approaching national elections into uncharted territory.

For more than three decades, Zia was not merely a leader of the opposition or a former prime minister; she was an electoral force without precedent. From her first victory in 1991 until her final contest in 2008, she never lost a parliamentary election, winning every constituency she stood in across five general polls.Also read: How Bangladesh is back where it startedHer passing comes at a moment when Bangladesh is already in political flux. Sheikh Hasina, her lifelong rival, is in exile following her ouster in 2024.

For the first time since the end of military rule in the early 1990s, the two figures who defined, dominated and polarised Bangladeshi elections are both absent from the ballot.

Khaleda Zia’s rise was inseparable from Bangladesh’s struggle to return to democracy. After the 1982 coup by army chief Hussain Muhammad Ershad ushered in nearly a decade of military dictatorship, Zia emerged as a central figure in the resistance.

She repeatedly boycotted what she described as stage-managed elections, endured house arrest, and gained a reputation as an uncompromising opponent of military rule.Also read: Who was Khaleda Zia - Bangladesh’s first woman PM and BNP chiefThat stance paid dividends after Ershad’s fall in 1990. In the landmark election of February 1991, held under a caretaker government, Zia led the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to power and was sworn in as prime minister. She restored the parliamentary system and became Bangladesh’s first elected woman prime minister, and only the second woman to lead a Muslim-majority country.What followed was an electoral record unmatched in the country’s history. Whether contesting seats in Bogura, Feni, Dhaka, Chattogram, Lakshmipur or Khulna, Zia won every time. Across five elections, she contested 23 constituencies and emerged victorious in all of them. Even when the BNP failed to form the government, she herself remained undefeated.

Her rivalry with Sheikh Hasina, daughter of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, soon became the defining axis of national politics.

They alternated in power, accused each other of corruption and authoritarianism, and mobilised rival street movements. Between them, they dominated Bangladesh’s electoral landscape for more than 30 years.BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir recently dubbed Zia as the 'Mother of Democracy'.

Zia’s later years were marked by controversy and confinement. After stepping down in 2006, Bangladesh plunged into unrest, leading to a military-backed interim government that arrested both Zia and Hasina on corruption charges.

Zia later returned to politics but was convicted in 2018 in graft cases that she and the BNP said were politically motivated.Ill health kept her largely out of public view. After years of being denied permission to travel abroad for treatment, she was finally allowed to go to London following Hasina’s fall in 2024, returning to Dhaka earlier this year. Only weeks ago, the BNP had nominated her for multiple constituencies for the coming election, even as she lay gravely ill in hospital.

The gesture was less about expectation than reality: no other figure commanded her popularity.In January 2025, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court acquitted her in the final corruption case, clearing the way for her to contest once more. She never did. Her death now transforms her political legacy into a potent symbol.

Khaleda Zia’s death injects a powerful emotional undercurrent into the February 2026 general election.

Historical precedent suggests such moments matter. When Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, her Pakistan Peoples Party rode a wave of public sympathy to emerge as the largest party in elections held two months later.A similar dynamic could now unfold in Bangladesh. Zia’s passing may consolidate the BNP’s base, boost turnout among loyalists, and frame the election as a referendum on her legacy, particularly after years in which the party claimed it was suppressed through legal and political means.Crucially, her death coincides with the return of her son, Tarique Rahman, who has come back to Bangladesh after 17 years in exile and is now positioning himself as the BNP’s undisputed leader. Rahman has completed voter registration, plans to contest from Bogura, and has drawn massive crowds since his return — invoking the language of liberation and democratic restoration.For the first time since the end of military rule, the two figures who dominated Bangladesh’s elections: Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, are no longer there.

The Awami League has been barred from contesting, Hasina remains in exile, and the political vacuum is real.Whether Tarique Rahman can convert sympathy into votes, and symbolism into governance credibility, remains uncertain. Allegations from the past still trail him, and rival groupings are attempting to regroup. Yet with Khaleda Zia gone, the BNP enters the 2026 race not as an opposition struggling for relevance, but as a party carrying the emotional weight of history.