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Pakistan

Country in southern Asia, stretching from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, bounded to the west by Iran, northwest by Afghanistan, and northeast and east by India.

Government

Pakistan has a multiparty federal parliamentary system, with a dual political executive comprising a president and a prime minister. Its democracy has been frequently interrupted by military coups. The federal republic comprises four provinces: Sind, Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Baluchistan, administered by appointed governors and local governments drawn from elected provincial assemblies; Tribal Areas, which are administered by the central government; and the Federal Capital Territory of Islamabad.

Pakistan's federal legislature, the Majlis i-Shura, has two chambers: a 342-member lower house, the national assembly, and a 100-member upper house, the senate. Members of the lower house are directly elected for five-year terms by universal suffrage and senators are elected by provincial assemblies for six-year terms, with half the chamber being elected every three years. Both chambers have seats reserved for women (over 50 seats in the national assembly) and religious minorities, including Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians (5% of seats). The national assembly has sole jurisdiction over financial affairs. The federal president is elected for five-year terms by an electoral college made up of the national assembly, senate and the four provincial assemblies The president must be a Muslim and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. There is a limit of no more than two consecutive terms. The head of day-to-day government is the prime minister, usually the leader of the largest party or majority coalition in the national assembly, who is assisted by a cabinet of ministers drawn from the federal legislature.

History

For history before 1947, see Indus Valley civilization, India: history to 1526, India: history 1526–1858, and India: history 1858–1947.

The name ‘Pakistan’ for a Muslim division of British India was put forward in 1930 by Choudhary Rahmat Ali (1897–1951) from names of the Muslim parts of the subcontinent: Punjab, the Afghan Northwest Frontier, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan. Pak means ‘pure’ in Urdu, and stan means ‘land’.

Fear of domination by the Hindu majority in India led in 1940 to a serious demand by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, for a separate Muslim state. This contributed to the delay in Britain granting independence for some years, but in 1947 British India was divided into two dominions, India and Pakistan.

The formation of Pakistan

The Islamic state of Pakistan was created, on Indian independence in 1947, out of the Northwest Frontier Region, the northwestern region of Punjab, Baluchistan, and Sind (making up West Pakistan), and the eastern region of East Bengal (making up East Pakistan). Jinnah became the first governor general and Liaquat Ali Khan, deputy leader of the Muslim League (1940–47), became the first prime minister.

Sectarian violence had been simmering for years, and at partition hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Hindus were massacred as they fled to the appropriate states. Punjab was the scene of the most violent fighting since there a third community, the Sikhs, was in the majority.

Early conflicts with India

Although Mahatma Gandhi, the hero of Indian independence, forced the Indian National Congress (see Congress Party) to divide the assets

of the former government of India, there was no confidence between the two countries.

In the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir the Hindu maharaja opted to join India at partition, and called for Indian intervention when Muslims marched from the north on Srinagar. Fighting between Indian and Pakistani troops was brought to an end by a UN ceasefire on 30 October 1948, but Kashmir continued to be a source of tension and conflict between India and Pakistan.

Another source of tension between the two countries was the question of the use of the rivers of the Punjab. Problems also arose from the fact that the new frontiers divided the cotton and jute mills of Indian Bengal from their sources of supply in

East Bengal (East Pakistan), and the consumers of Pakistan from the factories of India.

Political developments to 1958

When Jinnah died in September 1948 the new leaders, mostly lawyers, were not always dedicated to Islam, and others wanted a theocratic state. The prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan laid emphasis on the Islamic nature of the state in order to gain popularity, provoking protest from the Hindus in the national assembly. However, he pursued a policy of making peace with India, and was assassinated in 1951 by objectors to this policy. The period was one of political intrigue and incessant polemic over the Islamic, or even theocratic, nature of Pakistan.

In 1954, in East Bengal, a United Front party led

by H S Suhrawardy, leader of the Awami League, massively defeated the Muslim League, and in 1956 President Iskander Mirza was forced to accept Suhrawardy as prime minister, and the East Pakistan legislature voted for total autonomy, except in foreign affairs.

The new constitution introduced in 1956 declared Pakistan an Islamic republic (previously the British monarch had been head of state). The national parliament was to contain 300 members equally represented on both sides, and the prime minister and the cabinet were to govern according to the will of parliament.

Ayub Khan in power

In 1958 Gen Muhammad Ayub Khan led a military coup, suspended the constitution and all political parties, and declared martial law, with himself as the martial-law administrator. Ayub then assumed the presidency, and martial law lasted 44 months. To further his aim of ‘blending democracy with discipline’ he devised the system of ‘basic democracies’, elected by the people, as the local units of development. In the 1960 election the basic democrats gave him a massive mandate, although he received little support from the middle classes.

In 1962 a new constitution was introduced, which vested executive authority with the president, and the title of prime minister was abolished. The national assembly was divided into two provincial assemblies chosen by the basic democrats. Faced with orthodox Muslim opposition, Ayub retreated from early attempts at reform, such as the introduction of laws to restrict polygamy.

Although the economy grew rapidly – 6% per year between 1960 and 1965 – the imbalance between East and West Pakistan increased. The East contributed jute and tea, but most foreign aid, such as the Indus Basin scheme for hydroelectric development sponsored by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, went to the West. Pakistan received US military aid, which was used in 1965 in the war with India over Kashmir (see India). Pakistan was also supported by China, whose own border disputes with India had led to war, and Pakistan has continued to have close relations with China.

Ayub's popularity waned. In 1968 his autocracy was challenged and there was an attempt on his life. The following year, after his attempts at conciliation had failed and under pressure from serious strikes and riots, he resigned and gave way to the army commander in chief Gen Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, who became president.

The creation of Bangladesh

Regional tension had been mounting throughout the 1960s between demographically dominant East Pakistan and West Pakistan, where political and military power was concentrated. In the 1970 general election the separatist Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Sheikh Mujib), won the majority of the East Pakistan seats in the national assembly, while Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) won a clear majority in the West.

Sheikh Mujib's demand for total autonomy for the East, and not merely in the field of foreign affairs, led Yahya to suspend the constitution in 1971. Mujib's call for a boycott of West Pakistan and a general strike received total support in the East. When the negotiations failed West Pakistan forces invaded the East, brutally suppressed the separatist movement, and arrested Mujib. Million of refugees fled to India from the fighting, and India decided to intervene militarily. The subsequent defeat of Pakistan by Indian forces led in the following year to East Pakistan becoming the independent state of Bangladesh (1972). Despite being cut off from the jute and tea of the East, the Pakistan economy survived the loss. When Bangladesh was accepted into the in 1972, Pakistan left, but rejoined in 1989.

The premiership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Yahya Khan resigned in 1971, passing power in West Pakistan to the People's Party leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who became prime minister, with Chaudhri Fazal Elahi as president. Bhutto introduced a new federal parliamentary constitution in 1973 and a socialist economic programme of land reform and nationalization. The new constitution of 1973 formulated a federation with autonomous units, and a Council of Islamic Ideology was set up in order to bring existing laws into conformity with Islam. Prisoners of war were repatriated, and Bangladesh waived its intention of trying Pakistani ‘war criminals’ in exchange for an agreement in 1974 on the Pakistan external debt.

Separatist movements

The precedent set by Bangladesh led to a new danger of breakaway movements from other states. In 1973 a guerrilla war began in Baluchistan, and the Baluchi governor resigned. In the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) there was also unrest, with the Pathans campaigning for an independent Pakhtoonistan. The Pakhtoonkhwa National Awami Party leader was assassinated, and there was an assassination attempt on the NWFP Awami Party leader, Abdul Wali Khan.

By 1975 guerrilla activities had spread to Sind and the Punjab, and relations with Afghanistan, whose new government laid claim to the NWFP and Baluchistan, became strained when Afghanistan was seen to be supporting the Pakhtoonistan Liberation Front. In February 1975 the home minister Sherpao was assassinated. The NWFP National Awami Party was banned and Wali Khan was arrested, as well as other leaders who were agitating for state autonomy.

Zia seizes power

Despite deteriorating economic conditions, the general election of March 1977 resulted in overwhelming victory for Prime Minister Bhutto, but the opposition parties alleged widespread ballot rigging. Demonstrations and riots followed, leading to the imposition of martial law. Opposition leaders were arrested, and a general strike was called. Eventually the two sides met for talks and agreed to another general election.

However, in July 1977 the army seized power in a bloodless coup, with army chief of staff Gen Zia ul-Haq in control. Martial law was again imposed and political and trade-union activity banned. Bhutto was imprisoned for alleged murder and hanged in 1979.

Islamization and opposition

Gen Zia became president in 1978 and introduced a broad Islamization programme aimed at deepening his support base and appeasing Islamic fundamentalists. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan became a base for US-backed Afghani Islamic Mujahedin fighting Soviet forces, and Pakistan's support led to closer relations with the USA. Pakistan also joined the non-aligned movement in 1979, and has drawn closer to the Islamic states of the Middle East and Africa.

Zia's Islamization programme was opposed by middle-class professionals and by the Shiite minority. In 1981, nine banned opposition parties, including the PPP, formed the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy alliance to campaign for a return to parliamentary government.

The military government responded by arresting several hundred opposition politicians. A renewed democracy campaign in 1983 resulted in considerable anti-government violence in Sind province. From 1982, however, Gen Zia slowly began enlarging the civilian element in his government and in 1984 he held a successful referendum on the Islamization process, which was taken to legitimize his continuing as president for a further five-year term.

Civilian government

In 1985 direct elections were held to the national and provincial assemblies, but on a nonparty basis. A new civilian cabinet was formed and an amended constitution adopted. Martial law and the ban on political parties were lifted, military courts were abolished, and military administrators stepped down in favour of civilians. A government was formed by the Pagaro faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) led by Muhammad Khan Junejo, which was subservient to Gen Zia. Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and leader of the PPP, returned in 1986 from self-exile in London to launch a popular campaign for immediate open elections. Riots erupted in Lahore, Karachi, and rural Sind, where troops were sent in, and PPP leaders were arrested.

Islamic law introduced

In 1988, concerned with the deteriorating state of the economy and anxious to accelerate the Islamization process, President Zia dismissed the Junejo government and dissolved the national assembly and provincial legislatures, promising fresh elections within 90 days. Ruling by ordinance, Zia decreed that the Shari'a, the Islamic legal code, would immediately become the country's supreme law. A month later he was killed, along with senior army officers, in a military air crash near Bahawalpur. Sabotage was suspected.

Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the Senate's elderly chair, succeeded as president. In subsequent multiparty elections the PPP, which had moved towards the centre in its policy stance, emerged as the largest single party.

Benazir Bhutto's first premiership

After forging a coalition with the Mohajir National Movement (MQM), Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as prime minister in November 1988, and Ghulam Ishaq Khan was elected president. The new Bhutto administration pledged itself to a free-market economic programme, and to leave the military budget untouched. It also pledged its support of the Islamic Mujahedin fighting the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan. In October 1989 the MQM withdrew from the ruling coalition and allied itself with the opposition Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA). The Bhutto government narrowly survived a vote of no confidence a month later.

Nawaz Sharif's first premiership

Benazir Bhutto's government was dismissed from office by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in August 1990 on accusations of incompetence, corruption, and abuse of power. In October 1990 the opposition swept to victory and Nawaz Sharif, Bhutto's former chief minister of Punjab province, became prime minister. Sharif had headed the IDA, which incorporated the PML (led by former premier Muhammad Khan Junejo). The IDA captured 105 of the 207 parliamentary seats contested to the 45 of Bhutto's PPP. It also secured control of three of the four provincial assemblies, Bhutto's Sind stronghold being the exception. Sharif promised to pursue a free-market economic programme and was supported by the military, state bureaucracy, and mullahs.

During the Gulf crisis and war against Iraq of 1990–91, Pakistan sent 11,000 troops to Saudi Arabia to guard Islamic shrines, but there was considerable anti-Americanism within the country and popular support for the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Islamic law enforced

In May 1991 a sharia bill enforcing Islamic law and designed to create an ‘Islamic welfare state’ was enacted. The opposition PPP, though welcoming parts of the social-reform programme, unsuccessfully voted against the bill. Nawaz Sharif also launched a privatization and deregulation programme, but these reforms were soon upset by labour unrest and terrorist incidents, and by the uncovering of a financial scandal involving Nawaz Sharif's family and members of the government.

In September 1992 floods devastated the northern region of Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in 2,000 deaths and the destruction of a fifth of the area's cotton crop. The Pakistani government came under attack for its handling of the disaster, which also caused 500 deaths in northern India.

Political stalemate

From early 1993 President Khan and Prime Minister Sharif were locked in a power struggle, contesting each other's authority at every level. Five months of political stalemate ended in July 1993 when the national assembly was dissolved and both Khan and Sharif resigned.

Benazir Bhutto's second premiership

In the October 1993 general election Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as prime minister for a second time after the PPP and its allies secured a narrow victory over the PML, led by Sharif. The PPP was also able to form governments in Bhutto's home province of Sind and, in coalition, in the crucial state of Punjab. In November 1993 Farooq Leghari, drawn from Bhutto's PPP, was indirectly elected state president, promising to reduce the powers of the presidency and strengthen the prime-ministerial system.

From 1992 regional factional violence increased. In March 1995 two US diplomats were killed in an ambush in Karachi, an area that had seen escalating conflict between militant political, ethnic, and religious groups since 1994. There was also civil strife in North-West Frontier Province, where Islamic fundamentalism was on the increase.

In April 1996 the former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan formed the new Movement for Justice (Tehreek-e-Insaaf) to fight against corruption and injustice. Violent demonstrations, headed by fundamentalist Islamic parties, resulted when new tax increases, amounting to $1.2 billion, penalized poor people while the landed elite remained largely untaxed.

Benazir Bhutto dismissed again

Amid allegations of corruption and mismanagement against Benazir Bhutto and her government, President Leghari tried to persuade her to resign. She denied the charges against her, refused to resign, and was dismissed in November 1996. The president also dissolved the national and provincial assemblies.

In January 1997, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of President Leghari's dismissal of the Bhutto government, accepting the president's case that it had been characterized by nepotism, corruption, and misrule, and had been responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in Karachi. In the same month Bhutto's father-in-law Hakim Ali Zardari was arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion.

In January 1997 the interim government of Malik Meraj Khalid established a Council for Defence and National Security (CDNS) to advise the government on a range of security issues. By including chiefs of staff of the army, navy, and airforce, along with the president, prime minister, and defence, interior, and foreign ministers, it gave the military a formal role in the political power structure for the first time since the death of Gen Zia ul-Haq in 1988.

Nawaz Sharif's second premiership

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, leader of the right-of-centre PML, won a landslide victory in the February 1997 general election to become prime minister again. He pledged not to seek to ‘victimize’ his defeated opponents and promised market-centred economic reforms and improved relations with India. However, his room for manoeuvre was constrained by financial restrictions imposed by the IMF, as the country was heavily in debt.

In April 1997 parliament passed an amendment to revoke the power of the president – granted during military rule – to dismiss the prime minister and dissolve the national assembly summarily and appoint provincial governors and top military officers. Tax rates and tariffs were also reduced; 13 state-owned companies were earmarked for privatization; and, as part of an ‘accountability’ drive against corruption, in April 1997 the head of the navy was dismissed and a number of bureaucrats suspended.

In 1998 Benazir Bhutto, at the time in self-imposed exile, was charged with corruption, which marked the beginning of lengthy judicial proceedings against her and her husband. In April 1999, she and her husband were found guilty of corruption and given five-year prison sentences.

Nuclear capability

The USA suspended military aid in 1990 after learning that Pakistan was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto admitted in 1991 that Pakistan had the facilities for rapid construction of a nuclear weapon, and in 1994 Nawaz Sharif declared that the country had a nuclear bomb. In May 1998, in response to nuclear tests in India, Pakistan conducted five nuclear explosions on its territory. This further fuelled the tension between the two countries and angered public opinion worldwide.

In August 1998, two months after nuclear tests in Baluchistan, the government faced street protests against the growing economic crisis. This was brought about largely by the suspension of Western economic aid, credits from the IMF and investment, as a result of the tests. The value of the Pakistani rupee plunged and there was a sharp rise in the inflation rate and in government debt. In November 1998 US economic sanctions, which had been imposed as punishment for Pakistan's May 1997 nuclear tests, were partially lifted. This was a reward for Pakistan's announcement of a voluntary moratorium on further tests, a commitment to adhere to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the resumption of dialogue with India over disputed Kashmir. It paved the way for the government, on 25 November 1998, to agree a US$5.5 billion economic bailout package with the IMF and World Bank.

Increasing political unrest

During 1998 disillusionment with Pakistan's political class helped increase support for Islamic fundamentalists. In response, Prime Minister Sharif proposed, in September 1998, revising the constitution to introduce full Islamic law, but was checked by opposition within parliament.

During 1998, there was escalating violence in Sindh caused by violent clashes between rival factions of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a party oriented towards Urdu-speaking Muslims who had migrated from India on partition in 1947. The violence claimed over 800 lives in Karachi during the year. In October 1998, the MQM ended its national and provincial level coalition with the PML and federal rule was imposed on Sindh.

Religious conflict and social unrest continued in Pakistan into 1999. Many people feared an upsurge in the wave of sectarian killings that had claimed more than 3,500 lives since the early 1990s. Thousands of opposition supporters held demonstrations in September 1999, calling on the Prime Minister Sharif to step down. It was one of the biggest protests since he was re-elected in 1997. Traders were also protesting against a new tax, which formed part of an agreement with the IMF.

Military coup by Musharraf

Pakistan's army in October 1999 overthrew Sharif's unpopular government in a bloodless coup after the prime minister had tried to sack army chief General Pervez Musharraf. Troops seized Sharif, government buildings in Islamabad, airports, and a TV studio as the general promised to maintain stability. Governments all over the world condemned the coup and the Commonwealth suspended Pakistan's membership, but Pakistan's opposition leaders welcomed it.

Gen Musharraf appointed himself the country's chief executive, suspended the constitution, dissolved the legislature, put Sharif and a number of other politicians under house arrest with corruption charges pending, and declared a state of emergency. He appointed a 10-member civilian cabinet, known as the national security council, which included Shaukat Aziz, a senior executive with Citibank in New York, as finance minister. And he announced a seven-point programme intended to revive the economy, restore investor confidence, ensure law and order, and ‘rebuild national confidence and morale’. He allowed President Rafiq Tarar to remain in post and did not restrict press freedom or impose military courts, although he did insist that civilian judges take an oath of allegiance to the military government (six supreme court judges refused to do so).

Treason charges against Sharif

In November 1999 the military junta laid treason and kidnapping charges against the deposed prime minister and seven others. The trial began in Karachi in January 2000 against the background of bomb explosions. During the trial, Sharif alleged that he had fallen out with Musharraf over policy concerning disputed Kashmir.

Sharif was found guilty of terrorism and hijacking an aircraft, but acquitted of charges of conspiracy to murder and kidnapping. He was given two life sentences and also 14 years' imprisonment for corruption, and fined 20 million rupees/US$35,400. In December 2000, President Musharraf, responding to pressure from the USA and Saudi Arabia, agreed to pardon Sharif his jail sentence and allow him to live in exile in Saudi Arabia on the agreement that he would not involve himself in politics for 10 years.

Renewed Indian–Pakistani conflict

India continued to attack Pakistan-sponsored infiltrators with air strikes in Kashmir in June 1999, claiming it was winning the war which had begun the previous month. In January 2000 relations worsened when India accused Pakistan of involvement in a week-long hijacking of an Indian airliner by Kashmiri militants who demanded the release of terrorists imprisoned by India. The Indian government agreed to release three prisoners, including the Islamic religious leader Maulana Masood Azhar, who subsequently appeared in public on Pakistani soil. Shelling and clashes in Kashmir continued. But in May 2001, India unexpectedly invited Musharraf for talks in India, to discuss the future of the disputed territory.

A return to democracy?

In May 2000 Pakistan's supreme court ordered that general elections be held by October 2002. In August 2000, Musharraf announced the holding of non-party elections to local councils between December 2000 and August 2001 and reduced the voting age from 21 to 18 and reserved a third of the seats for women. He also decreed that those convicted of criminal offences or moral corruption would be disqualified from holding office. This banned over 100 political leaders, including ex-premiers Benazir Bhutto and Sharif.

In November 2000, supporters of Bhutto and Sharif, formerly opponents, joined with 15 smaller parties to form the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, designed to achieve an early end to military rule. In March–April 2001 the government responded by arresting over 1,600 opposition activists from the alliance who had been planning a large anti-government rally.

Musharraf becomes president

Gen Musharraf had himself sworn in as president in June 2001. Earlier, he had dissolved the already suspended National Assembly and Senate, and dismissed President Rafiq Tarar. It was widely assumed that Musharraf wished to consolidate his authority ahead of his meeting with the Indian prime minister in July 2001.

Support for US-led anti-terrorist coalition

In the wake of the al-Qaeda Islamic extremist terrorist attacks on the USA on 11 September 2001, President Musharraf declared that Pakistan would support US military action against Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had its bases. This support for the US-led war on terrorism had significant repercussions.

The action against Islamic Afghanistan provoked widespread opposition within Pakistan, with Islamic extremists growing in strength there. The overthrow of Afghanistan's Taliban regime also led to a humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of refugees fled Afghan cities and headed for the Pakistani border. In November 2001, there was a general strike in Pakistan to protest against the US bombing of Afghanistan, and extremist religious parties sought to build upon this opposition to President Musharraf's pro-Western policies.

In early 2002, Islamic extremists kidnapped and killed Daniel Pearl, a US reporter. In March 2002, five people, including the wife and daughter of a US diplomat, were killed in a terrorist attack on a church in the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad. It was the second attack on Christians in Pakistan since the US-led war on terror began; in October 2001 armed assailants had killed 15 Christians and a Muslim in an attack on a church in the city of Bahawalpur.

In June 2002 an Islamic militant suicide bomber drove a van loaded with explosives into the US consulate in Karachi, killing 11 people and injuring at least 45 more.

Increased tension with India

Tension with India increased in December 2001 when five armed assailants linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based Islamic militant group, broke into India's parliament and killed 14 people. India accused Pakistan's intelligence service of supporting the attack and demanded that Pakistan take action against the group. As tensions escalated, the two countries mounted large-scale military build-ups on their borders.

In May 2002, India accused Pakistan of backing Islamic militant incursions into Kashmir. The countries came closer to war as Pakistan test-fired missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and largescale troop build-ups on the Kashmir line of control continued. In June 2002, under diplomatic pressure from the USA, India announced a series of measures to reduce tension with Pakistan, including withdrawing its navy from waters near Pakistan and ending a ban on Pakistani civil aircraft entering its airspace.

2002 elections

In August 2001, Musharraf issued a Legal Framework Order which set out the constitutional basis for his continuing in office. He then held, in April 2002, a controversial national referendum to extend his presidential rule for five years. This secured 98% backing.

Parliamentary elections were held, as required, in October 2002 and resulted in victory for the centrist Pakistan Muslim League-Qaid-i-Azam (PML-Q) party, which supported Musharraf. Zafarullah Khan Jaamali, of the PML-Q, became prime minister in November 2002. He embarked on a programme of economic and social reforms, but parties opposed to the Legal Framework Order formed a substantial minority in the national assembly. They frustrated its working until December 2003 when Musharraf secured two-thirds majority support in the assembly for a 17th Amendment which gave the president increased powers.

Changes in prime minister

Zafarullah Khan Jaamali resigned as prime minister in June 2004. He was replaced briefly by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, also of the PML-Q, before Shaukat Aziz, the finance minister since 1991, took over as prime minister. Despite the changes in prime minister, the government continued with Musharraf's pro-Western foreign policy and efforts to stimulate investment in the economy, which was plagued by unemployment and inflation. It continued to be faced with rising domestic terrorism and Islamic extremism, with efforts to break away by the mountainous region of Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan. It responded by continuing to restrict media and opposition freedoms.

Run up to general election

During the autumn of 2007, opposition parties increased their activities in preparation for the general election scheduled for January 2008. In September 2007, former prime minister and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif attempted to return from exile. He was arrested on corruption charges at Islamabad airport and sent back to Saudi Arabia, but returned again in November 2007 and was allowed in. In October 2007, the PPP-leader Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan after an 8-year exile in Dubai and London and after President Musharraf gave her an amnesty on corruption charges. Her campaign was swiftly targeted by suicide bombers, claiming over 100 lives in attacks in Karachi.

In response to the increasing instability and the supreme court's investigations into the legality of his victory in the October 2007 presidential election, on 1 November 2007 President Musharraf imposed a state of emergency (lasting till mid-December), sacked the independent-minded chief justice and supreme court judges, and placed restrictions on the media and freedom of assembly and speech. On 27 November 2007, he retired formally from the army and a day later was sworn in for a second presidential term.

Assassination of Bhutto and its aftermath

On 27 December 2007, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a gunman after addressing an electoral rally in Rawalpindi, and 20 others were killed by a suicide bomb. Riots followed this killing, with major destruction in Bhutto's home state of Sindh. Troops and paramilitaries were deployed to contain the violence, which claimed 58 lives. As a result, the election commission postponed the general election until February 2008.

The election went ahead as re-scheduled and was generally free and fair, although at least 26 people were killed in election-related incidents on polling day. The PPP benefited from a wave of sympathy support and won most seats in the national assembly, finishing well ahead of the pro-Musharraf PML-Q. It subsequently formed a coalition government with the PML-N and Awami National Party. Yusuf Raza Gillani, the vice-chair of the PPP, who had served five years in prison 2001–06 for allegedly making illegal appointments when speaker of the national assembly 1993–97, became prime minister. The PPP leader, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, was unable to become prime minister as he had been disqualified from standing for the assembly by criminal convictions.

Prime minister Gillani ordered the immediate release from house arrest of judges detained on the orders of President Musharraf and called for a UN inquiry into Bhutto's assassination. He said the fight against terrorism remained a priority, but that he would be willing to listen to militants and insurgents who were ready to lay down arms. The USA urged the new prime minister to work constructively with President Musharraf, but the leaders of the PPP and PML-N both looked upon him as an illegitimate president.

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