Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was a Pakistani lawyer, politician and statesman who served as the fourth president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973, and later as the ninth prime minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977. He was the founder of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and served as its chairman until his execution. Born into a noble Rajput family that had accepted Islam, Bhutto was the son of a prominent political figure in the Indian colonial government. He was educated in Bombay (now Mumbai) and at the University of California, Berkeley (B.A., 1950). Bhutto studied law at the University of Oxford and then practiced law and lectured in England. Upon his return to Pakistan (1953), he set up a law practice in Karachi, where he was appointed a member of Pakistan’s delegation to the United Nations in 1957. After Mohammad Ayub Khan seized the government in 1958, Bhutto was appointed commerce minister and then held other cabinet posts. After his appointment as foreign minister (1963–66), he began working for greater independence from Western powers and for closer ties with China. His opposition to the peace with India after the 1965 war over Kashmir caused him to resign from the government, and in December 1967 he founded the PPP. Bhutto denounced the Ayub Khan regime as a dictatorship and was subsequently imprisoned (1968–69). After the overthrow of the Ayub Khan regime by Gen. Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, national elections were held in 1970. Although Bhutto and his party won a sweeping electoral victory in West Pakistan, the biggest election winner was the Awami League, an East Pakistan-based party that had campaigned for full autonomy for East Pakistan. Bhutto refused to form a government with this separatist party, causing a nullification of the election. The widespread rioting that followed degenerated into civil war, after which East Pakistan, with the help of India, emerged as the independent state of Bangladesh. Bhutto became the president of the remaining Pakistan in 1971 and then the prime minister in 1973. He pursued socialist policies and initiated a nuclear weapons program. He also promulgated a new constitution that made Islam the state religion and declared that only Muslims could be the head of state. He faced growing opposition from religious and ethnic groups, as well as from his own party members. He was accused of rigging the 1977 elections, which led to mass protests and a military coup by Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Bhutto was arrested and tried for the murder of a political opponent. He was sentenced to death and hanged in 1979, despite international appeals for clemency. He is widely regarded as a charismatic and popular leader who championed the cause of democracy and social justice in Pakistan.