BENAZIR BHUTTO

 

BENAZIR BHUTTO (1953-2007)

Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician who became the first woman leader of a Muslim nation in modern history. She served two terms as prime minister of Pakistan, in 1988–90 and in 1993–96.

Benazir Bhutto was born born June 21, 1953, in Karachi, Pakistan to a prominent political family. She was the eldest child of former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. After completing her early education in Pakistan, at age 16 she left her homeland to study at Harvard’s Radcliffe College. After completing her undergraduate degree at Radcliffe she studied at England’s Oxford University, where she was awarded a second degree in 1977.

Later that year she returned to Pakistan, where her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had been elected Prime Minister, but days after her arrival, the military seized power and her father was imprisoned. In 1979 he was hanged by the military government of General Zia Ul Haq. After her father’s execution in 1979 during the rule of the military dictator Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto became the titular head of her father’s party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and endured frequent house arrest from 1979 to 1984 before being permitted to leave the country in 1984.

She moved to England in 1984, becoming the joint leader in exile of the PPP. When her brother Shahnawaz died in 1985, she traveled to Pakistan for his burial, and was again arrested for participating in anti-government rallies.

Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in April 1986. after the lifting of martial law, to launch a nationwide campaign for open elections. Soon she became the foremost figure in the political opposition to Zia. President Zia died in August 1988 in a mysterious plane crash, leaving a power vacuum at the centre of Pakistani politics.

When free elections were finally held in 1988, Bhutto’s PPP won the single largest bloc of seats in the National Assembly and she was elected prime minister barely three months after giving birth to her first child. She became the first ever female prime minister of a Muslim nation on December 1, 1988. At 35, she was one of the youngest chief executives in the world, and the first woman to serve as prime minister in an Islamic country. Bhutto was unable to do much to combat Pakistan’s widespread poverty, governmental corruption, and increasing crime. In August 1990 the president of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, dismissed her government on charges of corruption and other malfeasance and called for new elections.

She was defeated in the 1990 election and found herself in court defending herself against several charges of misconduct while in office. Bhutto continued to be a prominent focus of opposition discontent, and won a further election in 1993, but was replaced in 1996. While in office, she brought electricity to the countryside and built schools all over the country. She made hunger, housing and healthcare her top priorities, and looked forward to continuing to modernize Pakistan. At the same time, Bhutto faced constant opposition from the Islamic fundamentalist movement.

While in self-imposed exile in Britain and Dubai, she was convicted in 1999 of corruption and sentenced to three years in prison. She continued to direct her party from abroad, being re-affirmed as PPP leader in 2002.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan in the autumn of 2007, after President Musharraf granted her amnesty on all corruption charges, opening the way for her return as well as a possible power-sharing agreement. Although she was greeted by enthusiastic crowds, within hours of her arrival, her motorcade was attacked by a suicide bomber. She only survived after ducking down at the moment of impact behind her armored vehicle.  She survived this first assassination attempt, although more than 100 bystanders died in the attack. With national elections scheduled for January 2008, her Pakistan People’s Party was poised for a victory that would make Bhutto Prime Minister once again. Only a few weeks before the election, the extremists struck again. On December 27, 2007 Bhutto was killed when an assassin fired shots and then blew himself up after an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi. The attack also killed 28 others and wounded at least another 100. The loss of the country’s most popular democratic leader plunged Pakistan into turmoil, intensifying the dangerous instability of a nuclear-armed nation in a highly volatile region.

Although Benazir Bhutto did not live to see these developments, the party she led and the causes she championed still play a major role in the political life of contemporary Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto left a deeply polarizing legacy. Her career has been celebrated as a triumph for women in the Muslim world and for the global fight against Islamic extremism. At the same time, she has been accused of corruption and bad governance. Her efforts and struggle to champion democracy remain a lasting legacy that is deeply respected among her rivals. Several universities and public buildings in Pakistan bear Benazir Bhutto’s name, while her career influenced a number of activists, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai.

(https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benazir-Bhutto;

https://www.biography.com/political-figure/benazir-bhutto;

https://achievement.org/achiever/benazir-bhutto/)