Bangladesh Parliament dissolved by president; Hasina's rival Zia 'freed' after years of house arrest

A day after Bangladesh's now-former prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country after resigning, the nation's president on Tuesday (August 6) dissolved the parliament.

This was a key demand of the protesting students. In a statement, Shiplu Zaman, press secretary of President Mohammed Shahabuddin said: "The president has dissolved parliament."

Furthermore, the Bangladesh President has also freed Hasina's arch-rival, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister from house arrest.

Interim government

The dissolution of the Parliament paves the way for the formation of an interim government.

In a statement, the presidential office said that the order to dissolve the parliament was taken after meetings with the heads of defence forces, leaders of political parties, student leaders and some civil society representatives.

Khaleda Zia 'is now free'

Zia, whom Reuters describes as an uncompromising PM, has been released from years of house arrest. In 2018, Zia, a bitter enemy of Hasina, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for graft.

The chairperson of the key opposition, Bangladesh National Party (BNP), Zia, is in poor health and is confined to a wheelchair with rheumatoid arthritis and struggling with diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver.

Rejoicing her release, party spokesperson A.K.M Wahiduzzaman told AFP that she "is now freed".

The enmity between Zia and Hasina

As per Reuters, the enmity between the two women popularly came to be known as the "Battle of Begums".

It has its roots in the murder of Hasina's father — Bangladesh's founding leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, along with her mother, three brothers and several other relatives in the 1975 military coup.

At the time, Zia's husband, Ziaur Rahman, was the deputy army chief and three months into the coup, he effectively took control of the nation. He was himself killed in another military coup in 1981.

The BNP mantle fell to his widow, Zia, and the two women in 1990 joined forces. However, there exists a mutual dislike between the two that has also been blamed for the 2007 political crisis in the country — when an emergency was imposed.

(With inputs from agencies)