Word: zia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Benazir Bhutto, last week's national elections in Pakistan must have seemed the storybook fulfillment of her father's fantasies. In the first truly free elections since the late President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq began his eleven years of autocratic rule, voters catapulted her Pakistan People's Party to dominance in the nation's politics and put Bhutto within reach of the prime- ministership once held by her beloved father. Dreams do come true. Scores do get settled...
...captured 92 of the parliament's 237 seats, decisively beating the Islamic Democratic Alliance, its nearest competitor and the relic of Zia, who died in a plane crash three months before the vote. The Alliance won only 55 seats. A surge of ethnic support thrust the fledgling Mohajir Qaumi Movement into the third and pivotal position with 13 seats...
...President could still give the Alliance first crack at fashioning a governing coalition, but its two main leaders failed to win Assembly seats. Command of the Alliance was ceded to Mian Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab and a Zia protege, who won two seats...
Whatever its makeup, Pakistan's new government will be the first run by civilians since Zia came to power. Four months earlier, the country's 102 million people would not have dared to hope for such an outcome. When Zia announced elections last July, he almost certainly planned to ban political parties. Only when Zia died in the still unexplained crash of his C-130 transport on Aug. 17 did the prospect for party participation emerge...
Bhutto mixes appeals to virtually every segment of Pakistani society with sharp attacks on the Muslim League for collaborating in Zia's authoritarian rule. Rejecting the socialist policies associated with her father, Bhutto proposes to end poverty through economic growth rather than by taxing the rich. At the same time, she has made it clear that there will be no witch- hunts in the army if she is elected. Bhutto promises to maintain good relations with the U.S. and says she will uphold Pakistan's pledge to aid the mujahedin rebels in Afghanistan. Alliance candidates, for their part, intend...