Bangladesh - Head of Government

The Hon Sheikh Hasina was returned to power as Prime Minister of Bangladesh when her Awami League party which led a grand alliance of political parties won a landslide victory in the Parliamentary Election on 29 December 2008.

She took office on 6 January 2009. Her first term as prime minister was from June 1996 to 2001 after the Awami League won the 1996 Parliamentary Election.

Sheikh Hasina served as Leader of the Opposition from 1986 to June 1996, and from 2001 to 2008. She has been President of the Awami League since 1981 when she was elected as the party’s leader while living in exile in New Delhi, India. Sheikh Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founder of independent Bangladesh.

She has won numerous awards, including UNESCO's Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize in 1998 for helping to end 25 years of insurgency and conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Sheikh Hasina also won the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Ceres Medal in 1999 for her contributions to agricultural development and food security. She also received the Pearl S Buck Award in 2000 awarded by the Randolph College, Lynchburg, Virginia, USA, in recognition of her achievements in socio-economic and political affairs.

Sheikh Hasina is a graduate of the University of Dhaka. She is an author of several books, including Why Are They Street Children (1997); The Origins of Autocracy (1993); Miles To Go – Elimination of Poverty and Some Thoughts (1993); My Dream, My Struggle (1996); People and Democracy (1997); and Development for the Masses (1999).

Sheikh Hasina was born on 28 September 1947 in Tungipara, Gopalganj district, Bangladesh.