Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chairperson and former PM Khaleda Zia
| Photo Credit: ANI

Tax authorities in Bangladesh on Monday (August 19, 2024) decided to unfreeze the bank accounts of Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chairperson Khaleda Zia, 17 years after banks were ordered to block them.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has instructed banks to unfreeze the accounts of BNP Chairperson Zia, the Daily Star newspaper reported.

In August 2007, the NBR’s Central Intelligence Cell directed banks to freeze the accounts of the BNP Chairperson, who has been elected Bangladesh’s prime minister twice since 1990.

The decision was based on a recommendation of a panel formed during the then Army-backed caretaker government, said a senior official of the NBR.

Since then, her accounts have remained blocked. The BNP has on several occasions demanded that they be unfrozen.

The latest move comes after a mass uprising toppled Sheikh Hasina, a long-time rival of Khaleda, on August 5, ending the Bangladesh Awami League’s 15-year rule. An interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was sworn in on August 8.

Ms. Zia, 79, was released from jail after Hasina, 76, fled to India on August 5.

Ms. Zia served as the prime minister of Bangladesh from March 1991 to March 1996, and again from June 2001 to October 2006.

The NBR said they received an application from Khaleda’s lawyer seeking to unfreeze the accounts.

“As there are no tax-related issues pending investigation relating to her, we have advised banks to unlock all her accounts. We have asked them to take immediate action and provide a compliance report,” the official was quoted as saying.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was recommended by Bangladeshi student leaders as the head of the interim government in Bangladesh, waves at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in Roissy-en-France, France August 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Filling the leadership vacuum in Bangladesh, albeit temporarily, Nobel Laureate and economist Muhammad Yunus has taken oath as head of the interim government. The 84-year-old microfinance pioneer will head the government until fresh polls are held. The parliament has already been dissolved by the nation’s president Mohammed Shahabuddin.

“If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, then I will take it,” Mr.Yunus said on Tuesday, a day after Ms. Hasina resigned and left the country. He was called on by student coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement to head the interim government.

Banker to the poor

“In Dr. Yunus, we trust,” wrote Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, in a Facebook post, echoing the widespread acceptability Mr. Yunus has in Bangladesh’s fractious polity.

Born on June 28, 1940, in Chittagong, East Bengal (now Bangladesh), Muhammad Yunus, the third of nine children, completed his primary education at Lamabazar Primary School and then studied at the Chittagong Collegiate School. After completing both a B.A. and an M.A. in Economics from Dhaka University, he started his teaching career as a lecturer in the same university in 1961. Obtaining a PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University, Dr. Yunus began his tenure as an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, U.S., in 1969.

As war ravaged his homeland, as it struggled for liberation from Pakistan, Dr. Yunus lobbied the U.S. Congress to stop military aid to Pakistan. He also helped raise support for the Liberation movement by running a Bangladesh Information Center in Washington D.C, and a Citizen’s Committee in Nashville, Tenessee, along with publishing the Bangladesh Newsletter.

With the birth of Bangladesh, he returned home, joining the Economics Department of the University of Chittagong in 1972. As the newly-separated Bangladesh suffered a famine in 1974, he forayed into rural economics, introducing the Nabajug Tebhaga Khamar to study economic aspects of poverty, and urged his students to lend a hand to farmers in fields. In his visits to farming households in Chittagong’s Jobra region, he realised the necessity and effectiveness of small loans to women bamboo furniture makers, freeing them from claws of loan sharks. Initiating the first ‘small loan’, Dr. Yunus lent $27 to 42 families in Jobra to manufacture their items for sale.

This idea gave rise to microfinance in 1976, where Dr. Yunus offered himself as the guarantor and secured a credit line from Janata Bank to lend small loans to Jobra residents. In 1983, the Grameen Bank was established, specialising in small loans and playing a pivotal role in eradicating poverty via micro-credit requiring no collateral. Over 100 nations, including India, have replicated this model. As of 2024, Grameen Bank has 2,568 branches across 81,678 villages with 10.61 million borrowers.

Dr. Yunus’ pioneering work in microfinance won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for lending a social conscience to capitalism and “their efforts to create economic and social development from below” in Bangladesh. However, it also attracted legal trouble in Bangladesh.

Brief political foray

Ahead of the 2006 polls, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) failed to agree on a candidate to head the caretaker government, leading to the imposition of a state of emergency in Bangladesh. With both Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina incarcerated by the military-backed government on extortion charges, Mr. Yunus announced that he would contest in the next polls by forming the Nagorik Shakti party in February 2007. However, he dropped the plans within months due to lack of public support.

Clash with Hasina government

On coming to power in 2009, Ms. Hasina’s government began scrutinising Mr. Yunus and Grameen Bank. In 2011, he was removed as managing director of the microlending bank, as he had passed the retirement age of 60. While he challenged his ouster, he lost the court battle accusing Ms. Hasina of targetting him. On multiple occasions, Ms. Hasina has accused Mr. Yunus for influencing the World Bank, which cancelled a $1.2 billion credit for the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project in 2012 – a charge which he has refuted. Over 150 cases have been filed against Mr. Yunus by the Hasina government as of 2023.

The micro-financing model itself came under the scanner after Mr. Yunus admitted that some organisations may have abused the system for profit. The lack of collateral in such loans have attracted high interest rates by some banks, leading to borrowers falling into more debt. In 2019, an arrest warrant was issued against Mr. Yunus for three alleged breaches under the Labour Act.

In May 2023, Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) accused Mr. Yunus and several others of misusing the workers’ welfare fund of Grameen Bank and regularising 101 staff members. After a lengthy trial, Mr. Yunus and his colleagues were convicted in January this year, mere days after Ms. Hasina began her fourth consecutive term as Prime minister.

“We have incurred the annoyance of someone because of chasing the three zero dream (zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero net carbon emissions),” said Dr. Yunus after his conviction, as thousands pleaded with the then-PM to pardon him.

Within six months, chaos and violence was unleashed in Bangladesh due to anti-quota protests, leading to a stringent crackdown by police. As student protestors sought one single demand – the resignation of Sheikh Hasina, the 78-year-old politician fled to India, ending her 15-year reign.  Now Ms. Hasina, whose government sought to incarcerate him, is out of power and out of the country, while Mr. Yunus is heading an interim government, tasked with overseeing an orderly political transition.

The story so far: On August 6, a day after Sheikh Hasina resigned as Prime Minister and left Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia, the ailing ex-Prime Minister of the South Asian country of 170 million was released on President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s orders. The 79-year-old chief of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been under house arrest since March 25, 2020, serving a 17-year prison term in two graft cases since February 8, 2018.

Ms. Zia was released after a meeting held between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military chiefs, political parties, representatives of civil society and leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, reported Bangladeshi news outletThe Daily Star. The ex-PM has several health issues, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes and heart issues.

In October 2023, the 17-doctor panel treating the BNP chief had claimed that she was at “high risk” of dying without urgent medical intervention abroad. However, the Hasina government had refused to permit her to leave the country. As per a conditional release sanctioned during a COVID-19 outbreak, Ms. Zia is not allowed to leave her residence in Dhaka’s Gulshan area.

With the Bangladesh parliament dissolved, the nation is headed for fresh elections to be held under a caretaker government, a mere six months after Ms. Hasina won the last one in a landslide.

Here’s a look at Ms. Hasina’s arch-rival Khaleda Zia and her political legacy.

1982: Joins BNP as a member

After the assassination of her husband and former military president General Ziaur Rahman in a military rebellion, Khaleda Zia entered active politics by joining the BNP and taking charge as vice-president, within a year.

1983-1990: Spearheads the anti-Ershad movement

Gen. Rahman was replaced by Gen. Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who ruled Bangladesh under martial law for eight years. Opposing military rule, Ms. Zia took to the streets along with her party members to mob the Secretriat building in Dhaka. Taking charge as BNP chief in 1984, Ms. Zia headed several rallies and protests against the Ershad regime, which had imposed a stringent curfew, and scrapped social schemes and secular principles from the Constitution.

Stitching a coalition with like-minded Islamic parties, Ms. Zia formed a ‘seven-party alliance.’ Allying with Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL), which headed a 15-party alliance, and the five-party Left coalition, Ms. Zia demanded an end to military rule. She was detained several times by the police and even placed under house arrest throughout the military rule.

In 1986, when the Ershad regime announced elections, Ms. Zia demanded the formation of a caretaker government to hold ‘free and fair’ polls. However, as the military government did not accede, the BNP boycotted the polls while the AL participated in the elections and emerged as the primary Opposition. The newly-elected Parliament lasted only a year as all AL members resigned and Ms. Hasina demanded free elections under a caretaker government.

As the military once again elected Gen. Ershad as the President, Ms. Zia joined hands with Ms. Hasina to launch a nationwide protest demanding an end to military rule. In the face of public outcry, Gen. Ershad resigned in December 1990, passing the charge to acting President Shahabuddin Ahmed to conducting ‘free and fair’ elections.

1991: First term as Prime Minister

The elections held on February 27, 1991 elected a ‘neutral’ ‘Jatiya Sangsad’ (national parliament), awarding BNP a slim victory. Winning 141 of the 300 directly-elected parliamentary seats, Ms. Zia was sworn in as Bangladesh’s first woman Prime Minister on March 20, 1991.

Under her first term, a bipartisan law – the 12th amendment – was passed by the Parliament to establish a parliamentary system in Bangladesh. Under this law, a House of directly-elected representatives, a council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister accountable to the Jatiya Sangsad, a constitutional head of state (President) to be voted by the Jatiya Sangsad and an independent judiciary was established. Her government also passed laws to make primary education compulsory and establish a coast guard, and also introduced a free market economy.

However, her government received a jolt in 1994, when Ms. Hasina, along with many AL members, resigned from the Parliament, accusing the Zia government of widespread corruption and rigging of by-elections. Refusing to pass the charge to a caretaker government to hold polls, Ms. Zia proposed a non-partisan advisory council headed by the President to oversee elections. With the AL boycotting the 1996 polls, Ms. Zia was re-elected for a second time in an election which saw only a 21% voter turnout.

Amid growing demands for fresh elections, Ms. Zia’s government passed the thirteenth Amendment to the constitution, allowing the formation of a neutral caretaker government to allow peaceful transfer of power and provide a level playing field to all political parties during elections. After a short, twelve-day term, Ms. Zia resigned and handed over power to a caretaker government headed by former Chief Justice Mohammad Habibur Rahman.

1996-2001: First term as LoP

Bangladesh awarded Ms. Hasina the mandate in the June 1996 polls, with AL winning 146 of the 300 seats, followed by BNP, which won 116 seats, and the Jatiya National Party (JP), led by the then-incarcerated Mr. Ershad, which won 32 seats.

Stitching a four-party alliance with Islamic parties like Jamaat-i-Islami Bangladesh, Islami Oikya Jote and Gen. Ershad’s JP, the BNP launched an anti-corruption movement against the Sheikh Hasina government. Ahead of the 2001 elections, JP exited the four-party alliance; a splinter faction headed by Naziur Rahman Manju remained with BNP.

2001-2006: Third term as PM

In the 2001 elections, the BNP-led four-party alliance won a landslide victory, winning 215 seats. Ms. Zia’s term, however, was marred by rising Islamic militancy, unchecked corruption, abuse of power, and erosion of democracy within BNP. According to The Daily Star, Ms. Zia had “stacked her party leadership and cabinet posts with her sons, nephews and other relatives,” promoting widespread nepotism. With her two sons in government, she allowed more radical and criminal members in the alliance government to rule unchecked with minimum accountability, critics alleged.

Ms. Zia’s reported patronage of Siddique ul-Islam alias Bangla Bhai, who was pivotal in forming the militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), marred her term in 2005. On August 17, 2005, 469 near-simultaneous bomb blasts occurred in 63 locations across Bangladesh, killing two and injuring over a hundred.

Her aligning with the Jamaat-i-Islami, which had opposed Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, also caused controvesy. Further, she has declared August 15 – the day when Mujibur Rahman and most of his immediate family members were killed in a military coup— as her birthdate, which has been considered an insult to the Awami League founder who has been named ‘Father of the Nation.’ She has also shown no documents backing this day as her date of birth and has been slapped with multiple cases for questioning Bangladesh’s independence history. She has also remained skeptical of the number of martyrs in the liberation war.

During her last term as PM, she implemented free education for girls, established the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and conducted free examinations.

2006-2008: Stalemate over caretaker PM and arrest

Ahead of the 2006 polls, the BNP and AL failed to agree on a candidate to head the caretaker government. Ending the stalemate, President Iajuddin Ahmed declared himself as caretaker PM and announced elections to be held in January 2007. With the AL accusing the caretaker government of a bias towards the BNP government, Sheikh Hasina announced a boycott of the polls and Bangladesh was placed under a state of emergency.

The military-run government headed by then-Army Chief Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed initiated a ‘fight against corruption’ and arrested both Ms. Hasina and Ms. Zia for alleged bribery and corruption. After months of incarceration along with other members of the Zia family, Ms. Zia was released in September 2007. In the following elections held in December 2008, the BNP only managed to secure 29 seats – marking the start of the fall of BNP.

2009 onwards: Sheikh Hasina wins four consecutive terms

In 2009, Sheikh Hasina began her second term as Prime Minister with an absolute majority of 263 seats. She passed the fifteenth amendment which scrapped the thirteenth amendment, ending the constitutional need for transferring power to a ‘neutral caretaker government.’ This ensured her continuous wins in consecutive elections in 2014, 2019 and now 2024. Ms. Zia and BNP have boycotted all the above elections, insisting that a ‘neutral caretaker government’ was necessary for free elections.

In 2010, the Sheikh Hasina government cancelled the allotment of late Gen. Rahman’s house in Dhaka’s Cantonment area to his widow. Vacating the palatial Army bungalow, Ms. Zia retained her residence in the city’s Gulshan area.

Prior to the 2014 polls, Ms. Zia was first put under house arrest. Later in February 2018, Ms. Zia was sentenced to a five-year imprisonment term for embezzlement of funds meant for an orphanage trust. The term was then increased to ten years by the court. Later in October that year, she was also sentenced to seven years in jail in a case involving a charity fund named after her late husband. The BNP claimed that the cases were politically biased, but failed to gain public support to pressure the Sheikh Hasina government.

Due to her conviction, Ms. Zia has been barred from contesting polls, as the Constitution prohibits the participation of a convicted person sentenced to over two years in prison. In the wake of the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, Ms. Zia was conditionally released from jail for six months, but told to remain at her Gulshan residence. Repeated requests by her doctors to transport her to facilities abroad had been rejected by the Sheikh Hasina government.

Her release amid the current political crisis in Bangladesh has raised hopes for the BNP to regain its political stature in the country. With several BNP members in talks with the military and students in forming a caretaker government, a fresh election without Sheikh Hasina’s influence may signify a turn of luck for Khaleda Zia, who still heads the BNP.

Sheikh Hasina ousted, all eyes in Bangladesh are on the main opposition party – the Bangladesh National party or BNP, whose top leader — former Prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia – has been released from house arrest.

Her son Tareue Rehman is returning to Bangladesh. Another top BNP leader who is expected to return is Salahuddin Ahmed, who has been living in India since 2015.

Ahmed has served a one-year jail term for illegally entering India, but even after being released has chosen to stay on.  

The leader, who has been camping out in Shillong, has claimed that Khaleda Zia will need advanced medical treatment.

“BNP wants all charges against her to be dropped. She would need advanced treatment and has to go abroad for it,” Salahuddin Ahmed said.Bangladesh President Khaleda Zia has already received her her renewed passport.

“People of Bangladesh strongly believe that Sheikh Hasina left after being forced. Others were not lucky enough to survive. Luckily I am still alive. I have been ready to return since the first day,” Salahuddin said.

Salahuddin, who landed in Shillong in 2015, faced trial for illegal entry. He was  acquitted in 2018 and has since been free to go.

The process, however, was delayed following an appeal by the authorities against his release. On February 28, a court in Shillong upheld the 2018 order of acquittal.

The BNP leader has claimed that Begum Khaleda Zia needs advanced medical treatment abroad thus BNP would demand all charges against her be dropped. The BNP will also call for a neutral general election.

“What happened to Hasina was her fate as she resorted to misrule for three consecutive terms with flawed elections and there was absence of rule of law. It was complete tyranny. The situation prevailing in Bangladesh is something like the mass revolution led by students,” Salahuddin said.

Former Bangladesh PM Khaleda Zia. File.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Accusing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of a “personal political vendetta” against her predecessor and political rival Khaleda Zia, a senior leader from her party on June 23 claimed she is on her “deathbed” as she has been deprived of advance medical treatment abroad.

A report in The Daily Star said that Ms. Zia, 78, was rushed to Evercare Hospital here in an ambulance around 3:30 a.m. on Saturday as she suddenly fell ill at her residence, ‘Firoza’ in Gulshan.

Ms. Hasina’s action is a result of “personal political vendetta,” Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir alleged and said, “It’s our misfortune that our leader Khaleda Zia is now in critical condition on her deathbed without receiving any (necessary) medical treatment (abroad).” She was quickly admitted to the CCU, where her medical treatment began under the supervision of a medical board.

The BNP leader further alleged that Ms. Zia has been imprisoned for a long period due to the vindictiveness of the current “oppressive fascist” government, the news portal said.

Ms. Zia, who was the prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and then again from 2001 to 2006, fell ill while staying in Old Dhaka Central Jail, but no medical treatment was provided to her there, he said.

“Although she was allowed to stay at home, she is actually under complete confinement and remains imprisoned,” he said.

“The BNP chief complained repeatedly, but the government did not pay heed and did not provide her with medical care. Later, when she was taken to the hospital (by the jail authorities), she did not receive any proper treatment there either,” Alamgir said.

“The medical board has consistently stated that treating Khaleda’s illness here in Bangladesh is not possible, she requires treatment at a multidisciplinary hospital in a developed country,” Alamgir said.

“But Sheikh Hasina out of her personal political vendetta has denied Khaleda access to better medical treatment to kill her and to remove her from politics,” he alleged.

In this December 28, 2017, file photo, Bangladesh’s former PM and Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia, center, leaves after a court appearance in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
| Photo Credit: AP

Bangladeshi doctors said on October 9 opposition leader Khaleda Zia was at “high risk” of dying without urgent medical intervention abroad after authorities rejected a plea to let her leave the country.

Ms. Zia, 78, is a two-time former Prime Minister who heads the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and has been living under effective house arrest since her release from a 17-year prison sentence in 2020.

She has advanced liver cirrhosis, diabetes and heart problems and the government of her bitter rival, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, last week rejected a family request to allow her to travel to Germany for a liver transplant.

Also Read: Bangladesh bars ill opposition leader from healthcare abroad

Ms. Zia and Ms. Hasina, 77 are known as the Battling Begums of Bangladesh politics and their internecine rivalry has dominated the politics of the South Asian nation of 170 million people for over four decades.

A panel of 17 doctors who treated Ms. Zia at a top private hospital in the Bangladeshi capital for the last two months backed the family, saying her condition was deteriorating.

“She’s at high risk of death,” hepatologist Nooruddin Ahmad told reporters.

The group said she had developed infections and breathing problems, and its head, F. M. Siddiqui, added that all options in Bangladesh “have come to an end, we cannot do anything more”.

The country is gearing up for general elections due in January, and Ms. Zia’s death would likely trigger huge opposition protests.

Ms. Hasina faces mounting pressure from Western powers to hold free and fair elections, which could set the stage for a comeback by Ms. Zia’s resurgent BNP.

The U.S., the EU and rights groups have expressed concern over the political climate in a country where Ms. Hasina has been in power for the last 15 years and her Awami League party dominates the legislature, running it virtually as a rubber stamp.

In 2018, Ms. Zia was sentenced to 17 years in prison for graft, and jailed for two years before being released under heavy restrictions. She has rejected the charges as politically motivated.

Kayser Kamal, legal chief for BNP, slammed the government’s decision to bar her from leaving as an act of “political vengeance”.