Benazir Bhutto is the democratic face of Pakistan. She was elected prime minister of the country twice, but could not continue her term on either occasion. Currently she has been campaigning for restoration of democracy in the country.
Born to Pakistan’s first elected premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Nasrat , Benazir Bhutto obtained a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Government from the Harvard University. Then she studied philosophy, politics and economics in Oxford University. .
Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 1977 and months later her father was dethroned by a military coup led by General Zia-ul Haq. He was imprisoned on the debatable charge of murder and finally in 1979 he was executed. Benazir was also arrested and detained for three years before being permitted to leave the country in 1984. She settled in London, but along with her two brothers, she founded an underground organization to resist the military dictatorship. When her brother died in 1985, she returned to Pakistan for his burial, and was again arrested for participating in anti-government rallies. She returned to London after her release, and martial law was lifted in Pakistan at the end of the year. Anti-Zia demonstrations resumed and Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in April 1986. She was elected co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) along with her mother, and when free elections were finally held in 1988, she became prime minister at the age of 35, the youngest chief executives in the world, and the first woman to serve as prime minister in an Islamic country. Only two years into her first term, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed Bhutto from office. She initiated an anti-corruption campaign, and in 1993 was re-elected as prime minister. However, she faced corruption charges, especially her husband Asif Ali Zardari. In 1996, she was again dismissed. Bhutto's husband was imprisoned, and once again, she was forced to leave her homeland. For ten years, she and her children lived in exile in London. She returned to Pakistan after reaching an agreement with General Pervez Musharrf on October 18, 2007. She has filed nominations for the January 2008 elections.
Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007 afternoon in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh area, was fifty-four.
Born on June 21, 1953, Bhutto was the first woman Prime Minister elected to lead a post-colonial Muslim state.
Bhutto attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School and then the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi. After two years of schooling at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her O-level examination at the age of 15. he then went on to complete her A-Levels from the Karachi Grammar School.
After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973 she attended Radcliffe College, and then Harvard University, where she obtained a B.A. degree cum laude in comparative government. She was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
The next phase of her education took place in the United Kingdom. Between 1973 and 1977 Bhutto studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She completed a course in International Law and Diplomacy while at Oxford. In December 1976 she was elected president of the Oxford Union, becoming the first Asian woman to head the prestigious debating society.
On December 18, 1987 she married Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi. The couple have three children: Bilawal, Bakhtwar, and Aseefa.
She was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, for the first time in 1988 for a period of 20 months before being removed by former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993, Bhutto was re-elected as Prime Minister and removed in 1996 on similar charges, this time by President Farooq Leghari.
Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998, where she remained until she returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after reaching an understanding with General Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn.
She was the eldest child of former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani of Sindhi extraction, and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, a Pakistani of Iranian-Kurdish extraction.
Her paternal grandfather was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto who came to Larkana Sindh before partition from his native town of Bhatto Kalan in Haryana.
After spending eight years in exile in Dubai and London, Bhutto returned to Karachi in October this year to prepare for the 2008 general elections and suicide bombers immediately attacked her PPP rally.
There have been several assassination attempts on Bhutto in the past.
