Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, was born on this day 57 years ago in Karachi. British India had been partitioned into India and Pakistan in August 1947, and tensions between the two countries have continued ever since. In 1956 a new constitution came into effect and the country became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Two years later, following a bloodless coup, a military government was installed.
At the end of 1971, following the war that resulted in the secession of Bangladesh, Benazir Bhutto’s father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became president. After the adoption of a new constitution he was elected prime minister in 1973 and remained in that position until he was deposed by a military coup in 1977 and subsequently executed. During the 1980s, Benazir inherited leadership of her father’s political party and the pro-democracy movement.
When democracy was finally restored in 1988, Benazir Bhutto’s party won the most seats and she was sworn in at the age of 35 as the youngest person and first woman to be head of a Muslim-majority country. Her government was dismissed after allegations of corruption in 1990; she was re-elected in 1993 and dismissed again in 1996. She was assassinated in 2007 during election campaigning. Her husband Asif Ali Zardari is the current president of Pakistan.