Khaleda Zia's death closes Bangladesh's founding chapter

The death of Khaleda Zia, who served twice as Bangladesh’s prime minister (from 1991 to 1996, and then again from 2001 to 2006) on Tuesday has shaken her home country, even though she had lived to the age of 80 and died of natural causes. Although she was not a member of the current interim government, her Bangladesh National Party (BNP) was widely expected to emerge with the largest seat share in parliament following the upcoming general elections in February. Her eldest son Tarique has now replaced her as the official party chair, after several years as the party’s de-facto leader.

Ms Zia’s passing represents something profound, which is the passing of the generation that midwifed Bangladesh’s incredibly violent and divisive birth as a country in 1971. It also marks the end of one of the longest-running feuds in high-level politics anywhere. Her political nemesis, Sheikh Hasina, head of the Awami League (AL), was deposed in August of last year by a student-led movement not long after beginning a record-setting fifth term as prime minister. What remains to be seen is if the segments of the population they represented will continue to be caught up in what was often a deeply personal antagonism.

Despite their decades of mutual hostility and supposed ideological differences, they shared a great deal in common. Neither woman veiled, preferring to project themselves as Bengali matriarchs who are nonetheless very modern. Although both were extremely formidable operators, they had, like other famous female leaders in the region, inherited their leadership positions from male relatives who had helped found their political parties.

Both families were very much on the same side during Bangladesh’s struggle for independence, when the military dictatorship in West Pakistan attempted to suppress the movement through mass killings and roundups. Sheikh Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was one of the movement’s early revolutionaries, and eventually became Bangladesh’s first post-independence head of state. Khaleda’s husband, Ziaur Rahman, was a Pakistan Army officer who switched sides in response to the repression and led Bangladeshi military resistance operations in the field. He eventually went on to found the BNP, and served as Bangladesh’s sixth president.

After independence, Bangladesh’s political unity quickly faded, despite the fact that the AL and BNP faced common threats, first from radicals who engineered repeated violent mutinies from below (both Mujib and Zia were assassinated while in office under similar circumstances), and later from a military high command that was loath to accept the messiness of party competition.

It marks the end of one of the longest-running feuds in high-level politics anywhere

Although both parties could legitimately point to their liberation credentials, the B