One and only one

THE Supreme Court of Bangladesh has just rejected appeals by a former prime minister, Khaleda Zia, over the appointment of a judge in a corruption case against her. The ruling clears the way for Mrs Zia to stand trial. Prosecutors accuse her of having siphoned off cash from charitable trusts set up in memory of her late husband, Ziaur Rahman, who was an army leader at independence and was later assassinated as president. If found guilty, the country’s second-most-powerful woman could face time in jail.

The court ruling reinforces the dominance enjoyed by the country’s most powerful woman, Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister (pictured above). It comes eight months after she won an unprecedented second term in an election boycotted by Mrs Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Sheikh Hasina had put Mrs Zia under house arrest and barred the BNP’s electoral ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, from running. With no opposition, it was a shoo-in for Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.