ASIA : Chaos Reigns as Bangladeshi Leading Ladies Feud : Power struggle between prime minister, opposition leader takes toll on nation.

If you thought the recent Newt vs. Bill tiff was, well, maybe a tad too personal and petty, what would you say about politics in Bangladesh?

For 20 long, wearying months, the two most powerful women in one of Asia’s poorest nations have been locked in a bitter feud, plunging Bangladesh into political gloom and economic pandemonium.

Railroads, highways and ferry terminals in this river-laced country have been periodically blockaded by protesters, shops have been closed, the prices of fish and meat have jumped by almost 20% in the capital because of disruptions in supply, and bomb-tossing demonstrators have clashed by the thousands with police.

At the plush Hotel Sonargaon, Dhaka’s ritziest, the airport shuttle leaves at 4:30 a.m. on days when strikes are scheduled, whisking groggy business people off to the departure terminal before protesters can block the streets.

“I’m leaving Dhaka a day early. I can’t do anything if there’s a strike--not even shop in the bazaar,” grumbled one recent visitor, a chemical engineer from Wisconsin.

Each day a strike is called by the opposition coalition, this densely peopled land where the average yearly income is a scant $220 per person forfeits nearly $54 million in lost wages and production, the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates. Since this deadlock began, there have been 70 days of hartal , or strikes.

“Our production is suffering due to the frequent strikes,” lamented Rewan Ahmed, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Assn. “We can’t keep our commitments to foreign buyers. This is a national loss.”

Such costly chaos in a country that can ill afford it is the consequence of what wags have dubbed the “battle of the begums,” or ladies of high rank. For months, the leader of the political opposition, Hasina Wajed of the Awami League, has been insisting on the resignation of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and the holding of new elections.

A rare 15-minute telephone chat between the rivals last Sunday evening failed to clear the air. Two days earlier, at Zia’s request, President Abdur Rahman Biswas had dissolved the 330-seat Parliament, five months before its five-year tenure was to end.

That gave the opposition half of what it wanted: early elections, probably in January before the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, begins. But the president also asked Zia to remain in office until the election, enraging her foes, who see her as a corrupt vote-rigger.

“We don’t accept Begum Zia as an interim prime minister. She must resign immediately and transfer power to a neutral caretaker government,” Wajed declared.

The faceoff between the begums began in March, 1994, when a candidate from Zia’s Bangladesh National Party unexpectedly won a parliamentary seat that had long been held by the Awami League. The opposition screamed electoral fraud.

Last December, 147 members of Parliament from the Awami League and its allies, the Jatiya Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami, resigned their seats en masse to try to force Zia from office. But she stayed.

The prime minister has called the opposition’s demand for an interim government “unconstitutional and undemocratic.” She has offered to step down a month before the vote, but her opponents, worrying about the advantages enjoyed by an incumbent during an election campaign, say she must surrender power at least 90 days before elections.

The inability of the premier and the equally strong-willed opposition leader to find a compromise condemns Bangladesh to continuing paralysis.