Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 (Karachi)-Dec 27, 2007(Rawalpindi)) was the first woman to lead a post-colonial Muslim state. The charismatic Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, only to be deposed 20 months later by the country's military-supported president Ghulam Ishaq Khan who controversially used the Eighth Amendment to dissolve parliament and force an election. She was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three years later amid various corruption scandals by then president Farooq Leghari, who also used the Eighth Amendment discretionary powers.
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Candidate's Party Affiliation
Contact Information
Candidate Address :
Central Secretariat, Parliament Lodges Islamabad
Introduction
Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 (Karachi)-Dec 27, 2007(Rawalpindi)) was the first woman to lead a post-colonial Muslim state. The charismatic Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, only to be deposed 20 months later by the country's military-supported president Ghulam Ishaq Khan who controversially used the Eighth Amendment to dissolve parliament and force an election. She was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three years later amid various corruption scandals by then president Farooq Leghari, who also used the Eighth Amendment discretionary powers.
History and Background
Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 (Karachi)-Dec 27, 2007(Rawalpindi)) was the first woman to lead a post-colonial Muslim state. The charismatic Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, only to be deposed 20 months later by the country's military-supported president Ghulam Ishaq Khan who controversially used the Eighth Amendment to dissolve parliament and force an election. She was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three years later amid various corruption scandals by then president Farooq Leghari, who also used the Eighth Amendment discretionary powers.
Early Years
Benazir Bhutto was the eldest child of the deposed Pakistani premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, who was of Kurdish-Iranian origin. Her paternal grandfather was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, a Sindhi and a key figure in Pakistan's Independence movement. Bhutto attended Lady Jennings Nursery School and then the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi. After two years of schooling at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her O-level examinations at the age of 15. In April 1969, she was admitted to Harvard University's Radcliffe College. In June 1973, Benazir graduated from Harvard with a degree in political science; during her time at college, she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She attended Oxford University in the autumn of 1973 and graduated with an MA degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. She was elected President of the prestigious Oxford Unio.
In Power
The charismatic Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, only to be deposed 20 months later by the country's military-supported president Ghulam Ishaq Khan who controversially used the Eighth Amendment to dissolve parliament and force an election. She was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three years later amid various corruption scandals by then president Farooq Leghari.
Current Status
In 2002 Pakistan's current president, Pervez Musharraf introduced a new amendment to Pakistan's constitution, banning prime ministers from serving more than two terms. This disqualifies Bhutto from ever holding the office again. This move by people who were themselves on shaky democratic ground, was widely considered to be a direct attack on former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and exhibits the military establishment's insecurities about its own political power.
Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998, where she cared for her children and her mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and from where she traveled around the world giving lectures and keeping in touch with the Pakistan Peoples Party's supporters. Benazir and her three children (Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Asifa) were reunited with her husband and their father in December 2004 after a period of more than five years.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after reaching an understanding with President Pervez Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007, after departing a PPP rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008 where she was a leading opposition candidate.
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