Abstract
The article is a political portrait of Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina Wazed. Born in 1947 to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh to independence from Pakistan, Sheikh Hasina took an active role in politics as early as the 1960s. In 1975, her father, mother and brothers were assassinated in a coup, but she and her sister survived because they stayed in Germany at the time. She returned to Bangladesh in 1981 and ran against the military government of General Hossain Mohammad Ershad.However, she spent much of the 1980s under house arrest or in prison. In 1991, her political rival, Khaleda Zia, of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won the Bangladesh’s first elections after the resignation of General Ershad. However in 1996, Sheikh Hasina was elected Prime Minister when her party, The Awami League, won the elections. In 2001, she was forced into the opposition again as her party fell out of political favor, due to corruption charges and because it was seen as being too close to the government of India. Since2001, corruption and murder charges have been leveled against Sheikh Hasina, resulting in temporary forced exile. However, in 2008, she returned to Bangladesh to lead her party in the general elections. The Awami League received a landslide victory, and Sheikh Hasina became Prime Minister for the second time. In 2014 she was re-elected for the third term.
Keywords
Bangladesh, women - political leaders, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, 1975 military coup, dictatorship, women empowerment, political dynasties in South Asia
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