Khaleda Zia and the discipline of power: Recollections from a constitutional crossroads

Khaleda Zia's death marks more than the passing of a former prime minister; it marks the fading of a political era when power, however fiercely contested, still acknowledged the authority of constitutional process.

At a time when Bangladesh's politics is increasingly defined by zero-sum logic and institutional distrust, her departure invites a return to a moment when disagreement did not entirely foreclose dialogue – and when stepping down was not yet seen as surrender.

One such moment survives in "The Ishtiaq Papers", the memoirs of the late barrister, constitutionalist and statesman Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed. Written with the precision of a lawyer and the restraint of a public servant, the book records an extraordinary meeting with Khaleda Zia and 'Group of Five', a group of concerned citizens, including the author, Justice Kemal Uddin Hossain, former chief justice of Bangladesh, Prof Rehman Sobhan, Faiz Ahmed and Fakhruddin Ahmed, who were trying to reconcile with the two major parties. The meeting was held on 9 October 1995, as Bangladesh stood on the brink of political paralysis over the demand for a non-party caretaker government. It was a period of agitation, boycotts and street pressure – but also a moment when the fate of the constitutional order still hinged on conversation rather than collapse.

Ahmed noted that "Begum Zia met us with grace and dignity and with due courtesies. She was alone, that is, without any aides. We spent two hours together." In a period defined by street confrontations and mutual distrust, the image of a prime minister engaging civil society interlocutors, unaccompanied, signalled a political temperament grounded in formality and composure.

Prof Rehman Sobhan was the spokesman at this first meeting. He started off well and expressed the concern of the Group regarding the prevailing political crisis to the PM and the need for an urgent solution. He said the Group thought that my formula covered and met the view points of both the ruling party and the Opposition and might provide a basis of a meaningful dialogue. He then explained the essence of my formula, and the PM listened with great attention.

It soon became clear, however, that Khaleda Zia's objections were not tactical but philosophical. Ahmed wrote, "To her the 'Caretaker' concept was a taboo. We discovered this within a few minutes of our meeting." Her scepticism rested on a fundamental rejection of political neutrality itself. "'A child or mad person can be neutral,' she observed," dismissing the idea that any politically active individual could transcend partisanship.

Even when the group sought to narrow the argument – framing the caretaker as a temporary executive arrangement rather than a new structure of government – the prime minister remained unmoved. One of the Group argued, "Madam you are right; but we are not negotiating a new structure of government but purely a temporary arrangement for the exercise of executive authority of the Republic when the general elections are held and conducted by an independent body, the Election Commission." The response, Ahmed notes with quiet candour, was ineffectual: "The argument did not appear to make any impression on the PM. It was like water on a duck's back."

Yet firmness did not preclude civility. Khaleda Zia carefully reiterated her commitments. She reaffirmed, Ahmed wrote, "She stood by her commitment to resign four weeks before the polling day." But she coupled this with a clear condition: "Upon dissolution of Parliament and her resignation the position of the PM in the interim government must be occupied by a member of her majority party in the outgoing Parliament."

She went further, outlining a model of interim governance she considered constitutionally defensible. The prime minister, Ahmed wrote, would agree "to accommodate five Opposition nominated persons to get elected unopposed to Parliament from seats vacated by the opposition," and that "along with six sitting members of Parliament of her party they would form the cabinet to run the interim government following the dissolution of Parliament." Crucially, "one of her six party members of Parliament should be appointed PM on her resignation."

For the group, these proposals were politically untenable. "We had no doubt that the Opposition would reject this out of hand," Ahmed concedes. Still, they pressed on, searching for any remaining space for compromise. In what he calls a final effort, the group raised the possibility of a mutually acceptable head of an interim or caretaker administration. Here, Khaleda Zia's response was nuanced. She did not dismiss the idea outright. Instead, she "expressed her grave doubts as to whether a person mutually acceptable to both sides could be identified as being politically neutral."

There was, however, a subtle shift. Ahmed noted that this stance was "a slight deviation from a 'child–mad' position taken by the PM at the early stages of the discussion." The moment of possibility came when she asked the group to name such a person for her consideration. The group declined, arguing "that identification of such a person should be undertaken through consultation between the ruling and opposition parties."

Ahmed's own summary of the meeting captures Khaleda Zia's political character with precision: principled, sceptical, and disciplined. "The PM was not agreeable to discuss neutral non-partisan Caretaker Government as it was according to her contrary to the concept of representative government," he writes. Yet, in the same breath, he records that "she stood by her declared commitment to resign four weeks before the polling day."

History would resolve the impasse in ways that even Khaleda Zia's critics must acknowledge as consequential. In 1996, the 13th Amendment institutionalised the caretaker government she had so vehemently opposed in theory. And once it became a constitutional fact, she complied – stepping down, dissolving parliament, and allowing a non-party administration to oversee elections.

That act, read alongside Ahmed's account, reveals a defining paradox of Khaleda Zia's leadership. She resisted the caretaker idea intellectually, even dismissively. But when the political settlement was reached through constitutional means, she honoured it. In doing so, she demonstrated a form of political courtesy increasingly absent from Bangladesh's public life: the willingness to step aside not because one agrees, but because the Constitution demands it. This cements her legacy – even though she is known as the uncompromising leader, when it came to the country and its democracy, she would compromise for the sake of the country.