Lt. General Ziaur Rahman's tenure as President of Bangladesh started with his acquisition of the presidency from Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem on April 21, 1977, after the latter resigned from his position on health grounds.
Ziaur Rahman, sometimes known as Zia, became the President of Bangladesh at a time when Bangladesh was suffering from a host of challenges that included low productivity, food shortage that resulted in a famine in 1974, unsatisfactory economic growth, massive corruption and a polarized and turbulent political atmosphere after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family members in a coup that was followed by a series of counter-coups in the military.
Ziaur Rahman is credited as a solid administrator with pragmatic policies who contributed to the economic recovery of Bangladesh by liberalizing trade and promoting private sector investments. During his presidency, Bangladesh started manpower export to different middle-eastern countries which eventually become Bangladesh's major source of foreign remittance and transformed the rural economy of the country. Besides, it was during his time that Bangladesh started exporting ready-made garments to take the benefits of the multi-fibre agreement, a sector that makes up 84% of the total export in Bangladesh. The share of customs duty and sales tax in total tax of Bangladesh grew from 39% of 1974 to 64% in 1979 which reflects a massive surge in economic activities inside the country.
During his presidency, Bangladesh's agricultural output grew two to three folds within five years. Jute became profitable for the first time in independent Bangladesh's history in 1979.
Zia's tenure as president saw a series of deadly coups in the Bangladesh Army that threatened his life. He suppressed the coups with brute force and after each coup secret trials were held inside the cantonment according to the military law. But he ran out of luck on May 30, 1981, when some military men forced their way inside the Chittagong Circuit House and killed him there.
He received a state funeral in Dhaka on June 2, 1981, which was attended by hundreds and thousands of people, making it one of the largest funerals in the history of the world.
South Asia specialist William B. Milam said, ‘It is hard to imagine what would have happened to Bangladesh had Ziaur Rahman been assassinated in 1975 instead of 1981. A failed state on the model of Afghanistan or Liberia might well have resulted. Zia saved Bangladesh from that fate.’
Accession to Presidency
Bangladesh after independence
After the independence of Bangladesh, chaos and power struggles between different groups ensued. Political murders became a common thing and productivity of key industries did not return to the pre-independence level. Despite the funnelling of million dollar-worth aid, Bangladesh was in acute shortage of foreign currency and political patronage made it difficult to distribute the aid to the poorest quintile of the citizens. In 1974 after a devastating flood, despite the availability of food grains, a famine began that killed around a million. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh, in a desperate bid to save the situation amended the constitution and 'institutionalized autocracy' by making him effectively the ‘unimpeachable’ President and curtailed the freedom of the judiciary and press.
Eight months after the constitutional amendment, he was killed along with his family members in a pre-dawn coup on August 15, 1975, that threw the country into deeper turmoil. A section of his colleagues from the Awami League, backed by his killers, took charge of the state under the leadership of Khandakar Moshtaque Ahmed, his longtime friend.
On November 3 a counter-coup led by the Chief of General Staff of the Bangladesh Army, Brigadier General Khaled Mosharraf put the Chief of Army Major General Ziaur Rahman under house arrest, made himself the chief of the army, and replaced the President Khandakar Moshtaque with his nominee Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem. But before he can consolidate his grip over the situation, a counter-coup was staged by the followers of Zia within the army, orchestrated by retired Colonel Abu Taher on November 7, that freed Zia and brought him to the centre of power.