Who was Benazir Bhutto? Part I
Mrs. Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state. She was elected to the office of Prime Minister of Pakistan twice, the first time in 1988 and then again in 1996.
She came from a very prestigious and political family. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was the President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and the Prime Minister from 1973 to 1977. Zulfikar was executed in 1979 under the leadership of General Zia ul Haq for the charge of attempted murder.
She was educated at both Radcliffe and Harvard.
Time.com remarks that her political career was marked by "great populist spectacles and little governmental achievement". The article goes on:
However, in the final analysis, her career was an almost tawdry cycle of exile, house arrest, ascent into power and dismissal, much sound and fury and signifying little. Jailed and then exiled after her father's fall, Bhutto returned to campaign for office in 1986 after Zia's military government gave in to international pressure to slowly restore democracy. (Despite his dictatorship, Zia was a key ally of the West, supporting the Mujaheddin against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.)...
Zia's death in a plane crash in August 1988 helped to further loosen the military strictures around the country, and Bhutto became Prime Minister by December of that year. As a ruler, Bhutto got few favorable reviews in Pakistan. Her government passed no legislation except a budget during its first 14 months in power. Much of its energy was squandered feuding with the opposition. Among the first acts of Bhutto's party after coming to power was a campaign to bribe and threaten legislators in Punjab. The goal: to overthrow Bhutto's nemesis, Mian Nawaz Sharif, Punjab's chief minister, a wealthy industrialist and a close associate of Zia's. Worse yet, her Cabinet stank with corruption scandals, including allegations against her husband Asif Ali Zardari and her father-in-law Hakim Ali Zardari, who was chairman of the parliamentary public-accounts committee. With so much fractiousness and scandal, Bhutto's first government lasted only until August 1990, dismissed by the country's president for "horse-trading for personal gain." Soon after, in November 1990, Nawaz Sharif, campaigning on an anti-corruption platform, became Prime Minister.
Bhutto returned to power in 1993, after Sharif was felled by his own corruption scandal. "This is my victory. It is a clear and decisive victory," she declared after a bitter name-calling campaign between herself and Sharif. But despite her claims, she did not have a working majority in parliament and had to wobble through her next few years in office as head of a fractious coalition, beholden to contentious blocs of power. At the same time, Pakistan owed huge amounts to the International Monetary Fund as part of servicing its enormous $28.6 billion in foreign debts. Bhutto had raised taxes, which raised the level of discontent in the country. But even so, her government did not collect enough revenue. In an effort to appease the IMF, Bhutto gave up the finance portfolio she had held since retaking the government. "The debt servicing is breaking our backs — debt that I didn't incur," she told TIME. "But as Prime Minister, I have to pay it back." Rumors soon spread that her government would be dismissed. "Rubbish," she said. But that is exactly what happened. Soon, Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister again.
What's this about corruption charges?
From the BBC's obituary for Mrs. Bhutto, her husband, Asif Zardari, was accused of stealing millions from the state. Many speculated that the downfall of her government was the alleged greed of her husband. Even though none of the 18 charges against him could be proved over the 10 years spent in court, he nonetheless spent 8 years in prison.
Mrs. Bhutto herself was charged with 5 corruption cases, none of which she was ever convicted, and finally amnestied in October 2007. She was convicted, however, of failing to appear before the Supreme Court in 1999, but this conviction was later overturned.
Soon after the conviction, audiotapes of conversations between the judge and some top aides of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were discovered that showed that the judge had been under pressure to convict.
Ms Bhutto left Pakistan in 1999 to live abroad, but questions about her and her husband's wealth continued to dog her.
She appealed against a conviction in the Swiss courts for money-laundering.
During her years outside Pakistan, Ms Bhutto lived with her three children in Dubai, where she was joined by her husband after he was freed in 2004.
What's up with all the deaths in her family?
As mentioned above, her father was executed in 1979. But her two brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, were also assasinated. BBC reports:
Her brother, Murtaza - who was once expected to play the role of party leader - fled to the then-communist Afghanistan after his father's fall.
From there, and various Middle Eastern capitals, he mounted a campaign against Pakistan's military government with a militant group called al-Zulfikar.
He won elections from exile in 1993 and became a provincial legislator, returning home soon afterwards, only to be shot dead under mysterious circumstances in 1996.
Benazir's other brother, Shahnawaz - also politically active but in less violent ways than Murtaza - was found dead in his French Riviera apartment in 1985.
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