The 15th death anniversary of the first-ever woman leader of a Muslim nation, Benazir Bhutto, is being observed today. Benazir Bhutto was martyred on December 27, 2007, soon after she addressed an election rally at Liaqat Bagh.
Born on June 21st, 1953, the daughter of the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto took over as chairperson of the PPP in 1982 after the assassination of her father in 1979.
On December 1, 1988, Bhutto became the country’s first female prime minister and the head of its first civilian regime since the negation of her father’s government in 1977. In August 1990, the president of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, dismissed her government on her indictment for corruption and other transgressions and called for new elections.
In elections held in October 1993, the PPP won a preponderance of votes, and it achieved in beating out Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML- N) party in every province – including Sharif’s home province of Punjab – except Balochistan.
With Bhutto losing public confidence amid her mounting troubles after her brother, Murtaza Bhutto, accused her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, of corruption, Leghari dismissed her government in November 1996.
Bhutto spent several years in banishment from her homeland in London. She returned to Pakistan with strategies to participate in the 2008 general election but was martyred in 2007.