Ghulam Ishaq Khan

Ghulam Ishaq Khan was a Pakistani bureaucrat, politician and statesman who served as the seventh president of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993. He previously served as Chairman of the Senate from 1985 to 1988 under president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, and was sworn in shortly after Zia's death in an air crash on 17 August 1988. Raised in Bannu, Khan graduated from Peshawar University and entered the Indian Civil Service, opting for Pakistan after the independence in 1947. Appointed the first chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority by President Ayub Khan in 1961, Ghulam Ishaq also served as Finance Secretary from 1966 to 1970. A year later, he was appointed Governor of the State Bank by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, before being made Defence Secretary in 1975, assisting with Pakistan's atomic bomb programme. He was retained by President Zia-ul-Haq as Finance Minister in 1977, overseeing the country's highest GDP growth average. Elected Chairman of the Senate in 1985, Khan was elevated to the presidency after Zia's death in an air crash on 17 August 1988. He was elected president on 13 December, as the consensus candidate of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad and Pakistan People's Party. The oldest person to serve as president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan played a hawkish role against Communist Afghanistan, while relations with the United States deteriorated following the Pressler amendment. Domestically, Khan's term faced challenges: ethnic riots flared in Karachi, and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto accused him of frustrating her government as part of an alliance with conservative opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and the post-Zia military establishment. Khan dismissed Bhutto's government in 1990 on charges of corruption and nepotism, and appointed Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi as the caretaker prime minister. He then dissolved the national assembly again in 1993, after a power struggle with Sharif, who had returned to power in 1991. However, the Supreme Court of Pakistan restored the assembly and the prime minister, and Khan was forced to resign along with Sharif under pressure from the military. He was succeeded by Wasim Sajjad as the acting president. He retired from public life and lived in his native town until his death in 2006 at the age of 91. He was considered a controversial figure in Pakistani history, as he was seen as a dictator who undermined democracy and the rule of law.