Wazed, Hasina

Wazed, Hasina

(hä'sēnä` wäzĕd`), 1947–, Bangladeshi political leader, grad. Univ. of Dhaka (1973). Popularly known as Sheikh Hasina, she is the daughter of Bangladesh's first prime minister, Mujibur RahmanMujibur Rahman
, 1921–75, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) political leader, prime minister of Bangladesh (1972–75), popularly known as Sheikh Mujib. Concerned that East Pakistan was unfairly dominated by West Pakistan, he helped found (1949) the Awami League to fight
..... Click the link for more information.  and a member of the Awami LeagueAwami League,
political organization in Pakistan and Bangladesh. It was founded in 1949 as an opposition party in Pakistan and had a moderately socialist ideology. The Awami [people's] League, with cofounder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as its leader from 1953, called in 1966 for a
..... Click the link for more information. , which her father cofounded and led. After he and other family members were killed in a 1975 military coup, she fled to India, where she was elected (1981) leader of the Awami League. Later that year she returned to Bangladesh and, as head of a multiparty alliance opposed to Lt. Gen. Hussain Mohammad Ershad's government she was repeatedly jailed and subject to house arrest throughout the 1980s. In 1986 she was elected to parliament. Elections held a decade later returned the Awami League to power, and Sheikh Hasina became prime minister. In office, she struggled with Bangladesh's poverty and other economic problems, but corruption continued to plague the country. In 2001 the League was soundly defeated by Khaleda Zia ur-RahmanZia ur-Rahman, Khaleda,
or Khaleda Zia
, 1945–, Bangladesh political leader. In 1960 she married Zia ur-Rahman, an army officer who founded the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP), became (1977) president of Bangladesh, and was assassinated in 1981.
..... Click the link for more information.  and her Bangladesh Nationalist party, and Wazed left office charging electoral fraud. In 2007 the ruling military-backed interim government charged Sheikh Hasina first with murder and later with extortion and corruption, and she was again jailed. In June–Nov., 2008, however, she was allowed to leave the country for medical treatment. The Awami League won a landslide victory in the Dec., 2008, parliamentary elections, and the following month Sheikh Hasina again became prime minster. The Jan., 2014, elections, which were boycotted by the opposition, again resulted in a League landslide. A similar result followed the Dec., 2018, elections, in which the League benefited from significant economic growth, but the latter were criticized for being marred by opposition intimidation and other irregularities.