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Biographies of Main Political Leaders of Pakistan

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Biographies of Main Political Leaders of Pakistan Biographies of main political leaders of Pakistan INCUMBENT POLITICAL LEADERS ASIF ALI ZARDARI President of Pakistan since 2008 Asif Ali Zardari is the eleventh and current President of Pa- kistan. He is the Co-Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a role he took on following the demise of his wife, Benazir Bhutto. Zardari rose to prominence in 1987 after his marriage to Benazir Bhutto, holding cabinet positions in both the 1990s PPP governments, and quickly acquired a reputation for corrupt practices. He was arrested in 1996 after the dismissal of the second government of Bena- zir Bhutto, and remained incarcerated for eight years on various charges of corruption. Released in 2004 amid ru- mours of reconciliation between Pervez Musharraf and the PPP, Zardari went into self-imposed exile in Dubai. He re- turned in December 2007 following Bhutto’s assassination. In 2008, as Co-Chairman of PPP he led his party to victory in the general elections. He was elected as President on September 6, 2008, following the resignation of Pervez Musharraf. His early years in power were characterised by widespread unrest due to his perceived reluctance to reinstate the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (who had been dismissed during the Musharraf imposed emergency of 2007). However, he has also overseen the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution which effectively www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk reduced presidential powers to that of a ceremonial figure- Asif Ali Zardari, President head. He remains, however, a highly controversial figure and continues to be dogged by allegations of corruption. Mohmmad government as Minister of Housing and Public Works. In 1988 changed political party and joined the Pa- Complete version of the Biography of Asif Ali Zardari kistan Peoples Party (PPP), with whom he entered the gov- at CIDOB’s website: http://www.cidob.org/es/ ernment of Benazir Bhutto as federal minister of Tourism, documentacion/biografias_lideres_politicos/(filtro)/ to spend a year later to reoccupy the portfolio of Housing pais/(pais)/1133 and Public Works. In 1993 he was sworn in as President of the National Assembly after the election victory of PPP. His leading as main political opposition to the military re- gime of President Musharraf cost him five years in prison YOUSAF RAZA GILANI on charges of corruption, between 2001 and 2006. So far, Prime Minister of Pakistan since 2008 Gilani is the longest serving Prime Minister of Pakistan, with Yousaf Raza Gilani is the current Prime Minister of Pakistan. 45 months in power. The challenges facing Gilani are ending He was nominated as Prime Minister by the PPP, with the Islamist terrorism and tribal insurgency. support of its coalition partners in March 2008. Gilani belongs to a family of politicians and Shiite religious Complete version of the Biography of Yousaf Raza of the district of Multan, in Punjab province. Graduated in Gilani at CIDOB’s website: http://www.cidob.org/es/ journalism from the University of Punjab, in 1976 he began documentacion/biografias_lideres_politicos/(filtro)/ his political career in the Pakistan Muslim League (PML). pais/(pais)/1133 In 1983 he gained his first elected position as president of Multan District and in 1985 he won a seat as an inde- pendent in the National Assembly, joining the Khan Junejo 1 CHAUDHRY AHMED MUKHTAR Minister of Defence Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, a prominent businessman, joined the PPP in 1990, and immediately made a mark by defeating a Muslim League stalwart, Chaudhry Shu- jaat Hussain, in the general election of 1993. His early electoral success against an established political family hastened his rise in the party hierarchy, and he was made Minister for Commerce, a position at which he served for three years from 1993 to 1996. He did not win a seat in the elections of 1997, but served as Secretary General of the PPP from 1997 to 1999. In 2002, during Pakistan: Country Profile Country Pakistan: the Musharraf government, he was arrested on charges of corruption (pertaining to his tenure as Commerce Min- ister) and spent a year in jail before being acquitted. He again defeated Chaudhry Shujaat of the Muslim League to win a seat in the National Assembly in the elections www.pakistan.gov.pk of 2008, and was one of the contenders for the slot of Yousaf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister Prime Minister in the new PPP-led coalition. Although he was not made the Prime Minister, he was compensated with the important portfolio of Defense. He has recently spoken out publicly for the restoration of NATO supply routes through Pakistan, provided NATO agrees to more favorable terms of compensation for use of the routes. HINA RABBANI KHAR Minister Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar belongs to a prominent feudal family of southern Punjab. Her uncle was the Governor of the Pun- jab in the early 1970s, and was a prominent PPP leader. Other members of the family have also been active in poli- tics. Ms. Khar was thrown into politics in 2002, when a new law came into effect, which stipulated that parliamen- tarians must have college degrees. Since her landlord fa- ther did not have the requisite academic qualifications, he asked his daughter, a graduate of the Lahore University of Management Sciences and Amherst College in the US, to www.mod.gov.pk fight the election in his stead. With minimal campaigning Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Minister of Defence and no public appearances (in deference to the cultural traditions of the area), she was elected as a member of the National Assembly on a PML(Q) ticket. She served as State Minister for Economic Affairs in the cabinet of Shaukat Aziz from 2004 to 2007. Ms. Khar was refused a ticket for the elections of 2008 by PML(Q), and decided to join the PPP and fight the election on a PPP ticket. She was elected on a gen- eral seat, and was appointed State Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs, a position in which she served for three years from 2008 to 2011. During her tenure, she became the first woman to present the federal budget in the National Assembly, as the post of Minister for Fi- nance had always previously been held by men. In 2011, upon the resignation of Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, she was appointed Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. She made an important official visit to India in July 2011, and appeared to have set in motion a thawing of relations, which had been cold since the Mumbai at- www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum CIDOB International Yearbook 2012 Yearbook CIDOB International tacks of November 2008. Hina Rabbani Khar, Minister Foreign Affairs 2 OTHER POLITICAL LEADERS attempt. Subsequently, a murder charge was registered against him, but he left the country clandestinely, sur- IMRAN KHAN facing first in Saudi Arabia in January 1992, and then Chairman of the Movement for Justice (PTI) arriving in London later the same month. He requested Imran Khan is a former cricketer turned politician, and political asylum from the Government of the UK and was the Chairman of the political party Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) granted the same, eventually becoming a British citizen (Urdu: “Movement for Justice”). With a degree in Politics in 2002. and Economics from Oxford, Khan is known for a career in Hussain has been based in London since January 1992, international cricket, eventually becoming the captain of and has never returned to Pakistan. Nevertheless, he the national team, and leading Pakistan to its only Cricket retains strong control of his party, and directs all its op- World Cup win in 1992. After retirement from his sport- erations from his base in the UK. ing career, he turned to politics, and established PTI in 1997. Although initially supporting General Musharraf’s military coup in 1999, he became a strong critic of the administration, and was put under house arrest in 2007 after Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Paki- stan. In the elections of 2002, PTI had one seat in the National Assembly. The party did not contest the 2008 polls on the grounds that polls held under the overview of General Musharraf’s government would not be fair. Post 2008, the party’s popularity has gained momentum, with Khan leading the criticism of the current government’s performance. Khan is also an active philanthropist, having established politicalBiographies main Pakistan of of leaders the first ever Cancer Hospital in Pakistan in 1994. He is also the Chancellor of the University of Bradford, and has established a college off in his hometown of Mianwali. ALTAF HUSSAIN Leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Altaf Hussain was born in a lower-middle-income house- hold in Karachi in 1953. His parents had migrated from the Indian city of Agra to Karachi upon partition of the www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum sub-continent, and were thus part of the Mohajir or “mi- Imran Khan, Movement for Justice grant” community. Hussain became prominent in student politics from a relatively young age. He formed the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organization (APMSO) in Kara- chi University in 1978. Hussain then formed the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1984, which claimed to be the only political party speaking for the rights of the Mo- hajir community, centered mainly in Sindh’s major cities of Karachi and Hyderabad. The MQM fought the gen- eral elections of 1988 and emerged as the third largest party in the National Assembly. Since then, the party has consistently swept both national and provincial assembly polls in Karachi, and also showed a substantial presence in Hyderabad. The MQM became the victim of factional infighting in the mid 1990s, after Altaf Hussain announced that the party would no longer represent the Mohajirs alone, but would work on a national platform, and would henceforth be known as the Muttahida (or United) Qaumi Movement.
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