 |
 |
In 1988, Benazir Bhutto became the prime minister of Pakistan and the first woman elected to lead a Muslim country.
|
Elections were held in November as scheduled and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), led by Benazir Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan from exile in 1986, won the most seats in parliament; it formed a coalition government with the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) and other smaller parties. Bhutto was sworn in as prime minister in December 1988. During her brief tenure, totaling 20 months, she was unable to pass any new legislation, given her party's slender majority in the National Assembly. Her term was marked by increased ethnic violence in her home province of Sindh; strong political opposition from her main rival, Nawaz Sharif, Punjab's chief minister; and charges of corruption brought against her allies and her husband. In August 1990, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, under the provisions of the Eighth Amendment, dismissed the Bhutto government.
New elections held in October 1990 gave a resounding victory to a multiparty coalition (the Islamic Democratic Alliance), headed by the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), that also included religious right parties. The alliance gained control of the National Assembly as well as the provincial legislatures, with the support of other parties, and elected the head of the PML, Nawaz Sharif, as prime minister. Sharif implemented policies that stimulated economic growth through privatization, foreign investment, deregulation, and denationalization of industries. However, disputes between the PML and the other parties weakened the coalition, and tensions between the president and Sharif led to the dismissal of his government in 1993. Although Sharif fought the dismissal and won in court, he and President Khan could not resolve their differences and under pressure from the army, both resigned their posts.
Following a brief interim government, Benazir Bhutto returned as prime minister after the October 1993 elections, but again, amid charges of corruption, nepotism, and mismanagement, her government was dismissed in late 1996.
photo: Reuters
|
|
|
|
|
|
