When the situation seemed to be deadlocked, the
army Chief of Staff, General Muhammad Zia Ul-Haq,
staged a coup on July 5, 1977, and imposed another
military regime. Bhutto was tried for political
murder and found guilty; he was hanged on April 4,
1979.
Zia formally assumed the presidency in 1978 and
established Shari'ah (Islamic law) as the law of the
land. The constitution of 1973 was initially
amended, then suspended in 1979, and benches were
constituted at the courts to exercise Islamic
judicial review. Interest-free banking was
initiated, and maximum penalties were provided for
adultery, defamation, theft, and the consumption of
alcohol. On March 24, 1981, Zia issued a provisional
constitutional order, operative until the lifting of
martial law.
It envisaged the appointment of two vice-presidents
and allowed political parties that had been
approved by the
election commission before September 30, 1979, to
function. All other parties, including the PPP, now
led by Bhutto's widow and by his daughter, Benazir,
were dissolved. Pakistan was greatly affected by the
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979;
by 1984 some 3 million Afghan refugees were living
along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, supported
by the government and by international relief
agencies. In September 1981 Zia accepted a six-year
economic and military aid package (worth US$3.2
billion) from the United States. After a referendum
in December 1984 endorsed Zia's Islamic-law policies
and the extension of his presidency until 1990, Zia
permitted elections for parliament in February 1985.
A civilian Cabinet took office in April, and martial
law ended in December. Zia, however, was
dissatisfied and, in May 1988, he dissolved the
government and ordered new elections. Three months
later he was killed in an aeroplane crash, and a
caretaker military regime took power.
A civil servant, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, was appointed
President, and Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister
after the PPP won the general elections held in
November 1988. She was the first female political
leader of a modern Islamic state. In August 1990
President Ishaq Khan dismissed her government,
charging misconduct, and declared a state of
emergency. Bhutto and the PPP lost the October
elections after she was arrested for corruption and
abuse of power. The new prime minister, Nawaz
Sharif, head of the Islamic Democratic Alliance,
continued the program of privatizing state
enterprises and encouraging foreign investment begun
in the 1980s. He also promised to bring the country
back to Islamic law and to ease continuing tensions
with India over Kashmir. The charges against Bhutto
were resolved, and she returned to lead the PPP.
In April 1993 Ishaq Khan once again used his
presidential power, this time to dismiss Sharif and
to dissolve parliament. However, Sharif appealed to
the Constitutional Court of Pakistan, which stated
that Kahn's actions were unconstitutional and
reinstated Sharif as Prime Minister. Sharif and Kahn
subsequently became embroiled in a power struggle
that paralyzed the Pakistani government. In an
agreement designed to end the stalemate, Sharif and
Kahn resigned together in July 1993, and elections
were held in October of that year. The PPP won and
Bhutto was again named Prime Minister. Farooq Ahmad
Khan Leghari became the new president in November
1993.
With Bhutto in office, relations between India
and Pakistan became more tense. Bhutto openly
supported the Muslim rebels in Indian-held Jammu and
Kashmir, who were involved in sporadic fighting
against the Indian army. She also announced that
Pakistan would continue with its nuclear weapons
development program, raising concerns that a nuclear
arms race could start between Pakistan and India,
which is believed to have had nuclear weapons since
the 1970s. In February 1992, when the Pakistani
government admitted to having nuclear capability, it
claimed that its nuclear weapons program had been
stopped at the level achieved in 1989-that is, with
an actual nuclear device far from completion. In
1996 the United States returned to a policy of
delaying delivery of military equipment to Pakistan
owing to China having supplied
nuclear-weapons-related materials in 1995. Relations
between Pakistan and India deteriorated in early
1996, when each country accused the other of
conducting nuclear tests, though the first
officially confirmed tests did not take place for
another two years.
Pakistan has generally been considered a moderate
Islamic state; Islamic fundamentalists won only nine
National Assembly seats in the 1993 elections;
however, during the 1990s Islamic activists seemed
to be gaining in influence. There were persistent
reports of discrimination against religious
minorities. The incidents increased after 1991 when
the National Assembly ruled that the criminal code
should conform to Islamic law and the death sentence
was made mandatory for a blasphemy conviction. In
February 1995 the position of religious minorities
was highlighted by the conviction and sentencing to
death of two Christians, one aged 14, for the
alleged writing of blasphemous remarks on a mosque
wall in a village in Punjab province. The imposition
of the death sentence on a child and questions
surrounding the evidence provoked an outcry within
Pakistan, as well as abroad. The High Court at the
end of the month overturned the conviction, saying
there was no evidence to sustain it; earlier the
original complainant, an imam (Muslim prayer leader)
in the village, had withdrawn his charges. The
government, which had supported the changes in the
law, appeared caught in a dilemma. Benazir Bhutto
described herself as "shocked" by the sentences but
declined to intervene. However, following the High
Court ruling she said there would be a review of the
law.
In June 1995 violence flared in Karachi over
Bhutto's alleged condemnation of the ethnically
based Mohajor Qaumi Movement, leaving over 290
people dead; all-party talks with the movement were
convened immediately afterwards, but did not bring
the hoped-for ceasefire in the city. In October a
number of army officers were arrested over an
attempted Islamic fundamentalist coup. Tension with
India following a mysterious rocket strike on a
mosque in the Pakistani province of Azad Kashmir,
bordering Indian-controlled Kashmir, escalated into
heavy fighting along the Kashmir ceasefire line in
January 1996. In April 1996 the former Pakistan
cricket captain Imran Khan formed an anti-government
political group, the Justice Movement, while
bombings and political violence took place in Lahore
and elsewhere.
In November 1996 Bhutto's government was for the
second time dismissed by the president under renewed
charges of corruption and misrule. The National
Assembly was dissolved for the third time since
civilian rule replaced military rule. Following
Bhutto's petitioning of the Supreme Court to
reinstate her, the court voted by a 6-1 majority to
reject her appeal.
On February 3, 1997, elections were held in order
to replace the Bhutto government. A low turnout
(around 30 per cent), mainly because of widespread
disgust over politics, nevertheless produced a vast
majority for former prime minister Sharif. The PML
faction led by Sharif won 130 out of 217 seats, with
Bhutto's PPP winning only 20 seats. Despite his
large majority and his election having been welcomed
by the business community, Sharif has to contend
with a president vying for greater influence,
indicated in his setting-up of a special council
that gives the military an official governmental
role-and which reflects the military's perennial
influence in the country's political process. Sharif
also faces widespread economic problems and rising
crime and violence.
In late March 1997 the government announced the
implementation of an economic revival program aiming
to enhance exports, reduce prices, and generate
employment. In April the National Assembly
unanimously passed a constitutional amendment
removing the president's power to dissolve the
assembly. This controversial ability had been used
to dismiss three elected governments since 1985. The
rupee was devalued in October by 8.5 per cent, an
action followed (later that month) by the
announcement a three-year financing package from the
IMF amounting to US$1,558 million; a World Bank loan
of US$250 million was announced in December.
Following a constitutional crisis, during which
Sharif had accused President Leghari and the chief
justice of trying to undermine his government,
Leghari unexpectedly resigned his position in
December; the chief justice was dismissed from his
post. Sharif's position was further enhanced when
his nominee for the presidential office, Muhammad
Rafiq Tarar, was successfully elected.
A year after enquiries into corruption allegations
against the Bhutto family begun, 12 corruption cases
were filed with Pakistan's accountability commission
in January 1998. Although the family's Swiss bank
accounts had been frozen in September, courts in the
United Kingdom questioned the legality of the
request for release of all documents held in the
United Kingdom pertaining to the Bhutto's finances
and dealings. Talks with India resumed in January
regarding the possibility of a resolution to the
Kashmir situation. A complementary working party has
been established, which also covers the issue of the
disputed Himalayan territory of Siachen. In April
Pakistan openly tested a surface-to-surface missile
with a range of 1,500 km (930 mi). Following five
underground nuclear tests by India in May 1998,
Pakistan responded within days with six nuclear
tests. The events further heightened tensions
between the two countries.
approved by the
election commission before September 30, 1979, to
function. All other parties, including the PPP, now
led by Bhutto's widow and by his daughter, Benazir,
were dissolved. Pakistan was greatly affected by the
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979;
by 1984 some 3 million Afghan refugees were living
along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, supported
by the government and by international relief
agencies. In September 1981 Zia accepted a six-year
economic and military aid package (worth US$3.2
billion) from the United States. After a referendum
in December 1984 endorsed Zia's Islamic-law policies
and the extension of his presidency until 1990, Zia
permitted elections for parliament in February 1985.
A civilian Cabinet took office in April, and martial
law ended in December. Zia, however, was
dissatisfied and, in May 1988, he dissolved the
government and ordered new elections. Three months
later he was killed in an aeroplane crash, and a
caretaker military regime took power.