Benazir Bhutto

— Bhutto on becoming Prime Minister in her autobiography

Following her election, there remained significant mistrust between Bhutto and the right-wing military administration; many senior military figures viewed her, like her father, as a threat to their dominant role in Pakistan's political arena. The country's three most powerful figures—the army chief Aslam Beg, the ISI chief Hamid Gul, and President Khan—all had contempt for her family. This opposition was substantial and contributed to Bhutto's inability to pass any major legislation during her first term in office. Bhutto was able to ensure the release of a number of political prisoners detained under the Zia government, as well as lifting the country's bans on trade unions and student associations, and removing many of the constraints imposed on non-governmental organisations. She also introduced measures to lift the media censorship introduced by Zia's military administrations. She entrusted Shamsul Hasan with dismantling the National Press Trust, a conglomerate of over 15 newspapers, but President Khan delayed signing the documents and thus the Trust would only be broken up during her second premiership.

Bhutto often argued with Beg, Gul, and Khan over her desired policies, and—according to Allen—"won some battles but ultimately lost the war" against them. Bhutto succeeded in getting Khan's approval to change two of the country's four provincial governors; she appointed General Tikka Khan, one of the few senior military officers who were loyal to her, as the Governor of Punjab. She sought to replace the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Iftikhar Ahmed Sirohey, but President Khan refused to permit this. Bhutto disliked Khan's hostile attitude toward her, but he had the backing of the military. In the presidential election, Bhutto initially proposed Malik Qasim, who had been involved in the MRD, as the PPP's nominee, but the military refused to accept this. Bhutto relented and agreed that Khan could be nominated as the PPP's presidential candidate. Bhutto also wanted to replace Mahbub ul Haq as a finance minister, but again the military opposed her. Compromising, she accepted ul Haq's continued role as finance minister but appointed Wasim Jafri as her financial advisor. Beg made it clear to Bhutto that the military would not tolerate her interference in their control of the defence and foreign affairs.

At the time, 60% of the country's population lived in Punjab province, which was under the control of Zia's protégé, Nawaz Sharif, as provincial Chief Minister. Both Sharif and Bhutto attempted to remove the other from power, with Bhutto accusing Sharif of having rigged the election to become Chief Minister. Sharif benefited from growing Punjabi chauvinism toward the country's Sindhi minority, as well as a perception that Bhutto—a Sindhi—was attacking the Punjab. Although Bhutto had long supported greater autonomy for Pakistan's provinces, she opposed it in the case of the Punjab. Sharif's Punjabi authority refused to accept the federal officials whom Bhutto posted there. Relations between Bhutto and Pakistan's civil service also deteriorated, causing paralysis of many state affairs; Bhutto spoke of it as "Zia's bureaucracy" and her perceived anti-Punjabi stance impacted many civil servants, of whom 80% were Punjabi. In April 1989, opposition parties organized a parliamentary no-confidence vote in Bhutto's leadership, but it was defeated by 12 votes. Bhutto claimed that many National Assembly voters had been bribed to vote against her, with $10 million having been supplied for this by a Saudi Salafi cleric, Osama bin Laden, who sought to overthrow her government and replace it with an Islamic theocracy.

— Bhutto's speech rallying Kashmiri militants to fight for independence from India, 1990

Realising the threat to her premiership posed by an unsympathetic president, she ensured that a PPP member, Farooq Leghari, was nominated and duly elected to the presidency in November. During her second term, Bhutto appointed both her husband and mother to her cabinet. The former was appointed investment minister, chief of the Intelligence Bureau, director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency, and chair of the new Environment Protection Council. She gave him a monopoly on the country's gold imports, a post that earned him $10 million, which he deposited in an Indian bank. Allen suggested that measures like these reflected how Bhutto had "given up on all her previous ideals and simply caved into the culture of corruption—indeed excelled in it, as she had excelled in so many other areas".

Benazir Bhutto was prime minister at a time of great racial tension in Pakistan. Ethnic violence had broken out in Sindh as muhajir—mobilised by the MQM—rioted in protest at what they saw as their poor treatment. To deal with the unrest, Bhutto permitted her interior minister, Naseerullah Babar, to launch Operation Blue Fox, a violent crackdown on the MQM. By the time that the Operation was officially completed, the government announced that 3,000 had been killed in Karachi, although the number may have been far larger. An Amnesty International report commented that while Bhutto had declared that her government would end human rights abuses, the use of torture, rape, and extrajudicial killings remained common in Pakistani prisons.

— Bhutto on the women's rights advances of her government

After the assassination was attempted, Benazir Bhutto's civilian security team headed under Rehman Malik, was disbanded by the Pakistan Army whose X-Corps' 111th Psychological Brigade— an army brigade tasked with countering the psychological warfare— took control of the security of Benazir Bhutto, that directly reported to Chief of Army Staff and the Prime Minister. Benazir Bhutto ordered General Abdul Waheed Kakar and the Lieutenant-General Javed Ashraf Qazi director-general of ISI, to start a sting and manhunt operation to hunt down the ringmaster, Ramzi Yousef. After few arrests and intensive manhunt search, the ISI finally captured Ramzi before he could flee the country. In a matter of weeks, Ramzi was secretly extradited to the United States, while the ISI managed to kill or apprehend all the culprits behind the plot. In 1995, she personally appointed General Naseem Rana as the Director-General of the ISI, who later commanded the Pakistan Army's assets in which came to known as "Pakistan's secret war in Afghanistan". During this course, General Rana directly reported to the prime minister and led the intelligence operations after which were approved by Benazir Bhutto. In 1995, Benazir also appointed Admiral Mansurul Haq as the Chief of Naval Staff, as the Admiral had personal contacts with the Benazir's family. However, it was the Admiral's large-scale corruption, sponsored by her husband Asif Zardari, that shrunk the credibility of Benazir Bhutto by the end of 1996 that led to the end of her government after all.

The US and UK had supported Musharraf because of his role in assisting their War on Terror—especially the War in Afghanistan—but they gradually lost faith in his ability to rule successfully. His domestic popularity was slipping; a mid-2007 poll gave him only a 26% approval rating. In 2007, mass anti-Musharraf protests broke out in what was known as the Lawyers' Movement. Pakistan was also experiencing growing levels of violence from Islamist militants, such as the Siege of Lal Masjid. Official figures held that eight suicide bombings took place in 2006 and 44 in 2007. The US government increasingly saw Bhutto as an important figure who could help to constrain Pakistan's domestic problems. They nevertheless wanted a power-sharing deal and did not want Musharraf removed from power completely, regarding him as a vital ally in their War on Terror.

— Islamic studies scholar Akbar S. Ahmed, 2008

Allen commented that although "the cards might have been stacked in Bhutto's favor—she was rich, educated, aristocratic, the favored daughter of a very powerful father—nevertheless, her achievement was a remarkable one" given the male-dominated environment of late-20th century Pakistani society. Mushtaq Ahmed similarly believed that "for a woman to win an election in a male-dominated society was an achievement", and that "her victory over the forces of reaction and persecution was an unprecedented accomplishment in political history." Ahmed thought that the election of a female Prime Minister in a Muslim-majority country served as "a proclamation that Islam was a forward-thinking religion". He added that as a pioneering female leader, Bhutto had "barely half a dozen" parallels, among them Indira Gandhi, Thatcher, Golda Meir, Chandrika Kumaratunga, and Corazon Aquino. Comparisons with Aquino were often made — and welcomed by Bhutto — because both women had fought against a military dictatorship and spent time in exile. She became a global icon for women's rights, and inspired many Pakistani girls and women by her example. The Pakistani women's rights activist Malala Yousafzai—who received the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize—cited Bhutto as a personal inspiration. Writing in The American Prospect magazine, the journalist Adele M. Stan called Bhutto "An Imperfect Feminist", commenting that despite her efforts towards women's rights, these were sometimes offset by her compromises with Pakistan's Islamists and her support of the Taliban's rise to power in neighbouring Afghanistan.

As Premier, Bhutto was reluctant to challenge the ISI's support for the Islamist mujahideen forces in Afghanistan which were then engaged in a civil war against the country's Marxist–Leninist government. The U.S. was funneling money to these mujahedeen through Pakistan, although preferred to deal directly with Beg, Gul, and Ishaq Khan rather than through Bhutto. In April 1989, Gul led an invasion of Afghanistan with the purpose of seizing Jalalabad, which was then to be formed into a capital from which the country's anti-Soviet, Islamist-dominated opposition forces could operate. When the operation failed and the Pakistanis were driven out by the Afghan Army, Gul blamed Bhutto's administration for the failure, claiming that someone in her entourage had leaked details of the mission to the Afghan government. Gul was too powerful for Bhutto to force him into retirement, but in May 1989 she transferred him from the ISI to another section of the military, placing a more trusted military figure in his role.

Overall, the living standard for people in Pakistan declined as inflation and unemployment grew at an exponential rate particularly as UN sanctions began to take effect. During her first and second term, the difference between rich and poor visibly increased and the middle class in particular were the ones who bore the brunt of the economic inequality. According to a calculation completed by the Federal Bureau of Statistics, the standard of living for the rich improved while the standard of living for the poor declined. Benazir attributed this economic inequality to be a result of ongoing and continuous illegal Bangladeshi immigration. Bhutto ordered a crackdown on and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. Her action strained and created tensions in Bangladesh–Pakistan relations, as Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia refused to accept the deportees and reportedly sent two planeloads back to Pakistan. Religious parties also criticised Bhutto and dubbed the crackdown as anti-Islamic.

Assessing her legacy, William Dalrymple wrote in The Guardian that "it's wrong for the West simply to mourn Benazir Bhutto as a martyred democrat since her legacy was far murkier and more complex". Despite her western and positive image in the world, Bhutto's controversial policies and support have made her legacy much more complicated. Benazir Bhutto failed to revert the controversial Hudood Ordinance – a contentious presidential ordinance which suppressed women's rights, making them subordinate to men. In 2009, CBS News, described her legacy as "mixed", and commented that: "it's only in death that she will become an icon—in some ways, people will look at her accomplishments through rose-tinted glasses rather than remembering the corruption charges, her lack of achievements or how much she was manipulated by other people." Jason Burke, writing in The Guardian about Benazir, termed her "[both] a victim, as well as in part a culprit, of its [Pakistan's] chronic instability".

As president, Zardari called for a United Nations investigation into his wife's assassination. In 2009, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon established a three-person team to lead the investigation comprising the Chilean Heraldo Muñoz, Irish Peter Fitzgerald, and Indonesian Marzuki Darusman. Although it was not in the commission's remit to identify a culprit, Muñoz later expressed the view that the assassination was likely carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, perhaps with the support of Mehsud, and that they may well have been assisted by rogue elements in the country's intelligence agencies. He also expressed the view that the original police investigation had been deliberately botched. In February 2012, the Pakistani official enquiry issued its final report, placing responsibility for the attack with 27 different militant groups. In May 2013, the state's main prosecutor in the Bhutto case, Zulfikar Ali, was himself assassinated in Islamabad. There was never a smoking gun in the Bhutto investigation. Many in Pakistan had reasons for wanting Bhutto dead; her killing was advantageous to both the military establishment and to the Islamic fundamentalists who despised her.

In Bhutto's political will, she had designated her son Bilawal, who was then nineteen, as her political heir as chair of the PPP. It also specified that her husband should serve as custodial chairman until Bilawal completed his formal education. Zardari became co-chair of the PPP. The academic Anna Suvorova specified that Bhutto's assassination created "a real family cult", one which was "fuelled by various apocrypha, rituals, and relics". In the wake of Bhutto's death, the election was postponed from January to February 2008, when it resulted in the formation of a coalition government bringing together the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). The new coalition put forth PPP member Yousuf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister. Musharraf, facing likely impeachment, resigned as president in August. He fled to London although, in February 2011, a Rawalpindi court issued a subpoena for him on the grounds that he had not acted on known threats to Bhutto and had provided insufficient security to protect her. In September 2008, Zardari was elected President of Pakistan by the country's electoral college; he remained in that position until 2013.

In 2008 in honor of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan Post released:

In 2006, the Pakistani National Accountability Bureau (NAB) accused Bhutto, Malik and Ali Jaffery of owning Petrofine. Bhutto and the PPP denied this. In April 2006 an NAB court froze assets owned in Pakistan and elsewhere by Bhutto and Zardari. The $1.5 billion in assets were acquired through corrupt practices, the NAB said, and noting that the 1997 Swiss charges of criminal money-laundering were still in litigation. At Pakistan's request, Interpol issued notices—but not arrest warrants—for Bhutto and her husband. On 27 January 2007, she was invited by the United States to speak to President George W. Bush and Congressional and State Department officials.

Concerned about the instability of their ally, the U.S. government pushed Musharraf to meet with Bhutto and come to an arrangement that might strengthen his legitimacy. This was also encouraged by the UK government. In January 2007, Musharraf held his first meeting with Bhutto at a hotel in Abu Dhabi, followed by further talks in June. As a result of their discussions, it was agreed that the Pakistani authorities would drop all charges of corruption against both Bhutto and her husband. This was achieved through the introduction of the National Reconciliation Ordinance, a measure which nullified all pending criminal proceedings against politicians. The Ordinance also lifted Musharraf's ban on individuals serving more than two terms as Prime Minister. It was also agreed that if Musharraf stepped down from his military positions and was elected as a civilian President, then Bhutto would be willing to serve under him as Prime Minister. Many of Musharraf's close allies had reservations about his concessions to Bhutto.

The US' Condoleezza Rice and the UK's Jack Straw worked together to ensure a transition back to electoral democracy in Pakistan. The UK and Spain both dropped criminal investigations into Bhutto's corruption, although Switzerland refused to do so. In August 2007, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalizad, had several meetings with Bhutto in New York City. There, Bhutto also gave a public talk at the Council of Foreign Relations. Bhutto and Khalizad also traveled to a luncheon in Aspen, Colorado to meet with prominent U.S. political and business leaders. In October 2007, Musharraf was elected President by Pakistan's parliament. In keeping with the agreement made by Bhutto and Musharraf, the PPP representatives abstained rather than voting against Musharraf's nomination.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007, arriving in Karachi. It was widely thought that she had a strong chance of becoming the country's next Prime Minister in the 2008 national elections, although her deal with Musharraf and links with the U.S. had dented her popularity and Sharif—still in Saudi Arabia—was more popular in the opinion polls. Musharraf was annoyed at her arrival, having requested that she return only after the election.

On the morning of 27 December 2007, Bhutto met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In the afternoon, she gave a speech at a PPP rally held in Rawalpindi's Liaquat National Bagh. On leaving in a bulletproof vehicle, she opened the car's escape hatch and stood up to wave to the surrounding crowds. A man standing within two to three metres of the car fired three gunshots at her and detonated a suicide vest packed with ball bearings. Bhutto was fatally injured; reports differ as to whether she was hit by bullets or by shrapnel from the explosion. Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital but was clinically dead on arrival and attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful. No autopsy was conducted, and the body was swiftly transported to Chaklala Air Base. The following day, she was buried next to her father in the Bhutto family mausoleum, Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, her family graveyard near Larkana. PPP supporters rioted in various parts of Pakistan.

During her years in office Bhutto also did nothing to seriously challenge the feudal nature of rural Pakistan. Under Bhutto, Ahmed wrote, people from the wealthy feudal class dominated the PPP "both at the federal and provincial levels". Bhargava suggested that, because of the period in which she was operating, Bhutto did not need to engage in the "verbal radicalism" employed by her father, not needing to "clamor for a socialist identity" in order to win votes and allowing her to be "a pragmatist in both word and deed". Lamb described Bhutto at being skilled in using populist strategies in election campaigns. In a 2007 article for the Los Angeles Times, Bhutto's niece, Fatima Bhutto, called her "a puppet 'democrat' " linked to the U.S. government's neoconservative agenda.

In the final years of Bhutto's life, she and her husband lived apart. According to Allen, she would have been aware that a divorce or a public separation would have resulted at the end of her political career in Pakistan due to social stigma around the subject. In a 2007 interview, Bhutto said that she and her husband were living apart because of his medical requirements, adding that she visited him every month in New York. Regarding the rumors of separation, in 2008 Bhutto's friend Victoria Schofield said that the marriage should not be judged by ordinary standards. According to Schofield, after Zardari's return from prison, the Bhuttos' marriage was going through a process of "readjustment". In 2018, Bhutto's friend Ron Suskind described the marriage as "probably not all bad", although added that Bhutto did not consider her husband to be an equal partner in the marriage.

Assisted by Luis Ayala, the secretary-general of the Socialist International, in 2006 Bhutto and Sharif began a process of reconciliation. Ayala believed that this was a prerequisite for ensuring Pakistan's transition back to democratic elections. Both Bhutto and Sharif were then living in London, not far from one another. Facilitated by the lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, the pair developed a joint plan of action. In May 2006 they both signed a Charter of Democracy, a document calling for an end to military rule. They established a committee consisting of four Pakistani senators, two from the PPP and two from the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). The pair's reconciliation was formalised with the signing of a Charter of Democracy in May 2007. Henceforth, Bhutto avoided openly criticizing Sharif as she once had.

Under Bhutto's leadership, the PPP was officially secular, as were the governments which she led. However, in Pakistan at the time, the term "secularisation" was often understood not as reflecting the separation of religious institutions and the state, but rather had connotations of atheism and irreligion. Bhutto also took a hard stance against militant Islamism. Although she had to compromise with Pakistan's powerful Islamist lobby, she favored a secular government for the country. Allen wrote that "at no time in her years in power did Bhutto, Westernized though she was, feel comfortable in seriously challenging Pakistan's Islamists". Although during her campaigns she vowed to abolish the hudud restrictions on women that Zia had introduced, she never did so; instead these were revoked by Musharraf in 2006.

A Swiss court ordered her to turn over $11.9 million to the Pakistani state and to serve 180 days in prison. 17 Swiss bank accounts owned by the Zardari-Bhutto family were frozen by the country's government. In 2004, a UK court ruled that Rockwood Estate—which Zardari owned, despite his repeated denials—should be sold and the proceeds given to the Pakistani state, who were the rightful owners. Zardari protested, admitting that he owned the property and that he should receive the proceeds of its sale.

She was in Dubai while the PPP contested the October 2002 general election; it received the largest number of votes but only 63 seats in the National Assembly. Musharraf agreed to release Zardari in November 2004 as a symbol of good will; following his release, Zardari travelled to New York. The couple did not officially acknowledge it, but their relationship was essentially over. Figures in the PPP alleged that Musharraf held a longstanding animosity towards Bhutto and her family because, under her father, Musharraf's father had been sacked from his position, accused of involvement in a scam.

In a 2002 interview with The Guardian, Bhutto described her allegiance to the Sufi branch of Sunni Islam. Allen thought her to have "some genuine, if unorthodox, religious belief, mixed up with superstition". Bhargava stated that Bhutto was "dedicated and devout in her religious principles but modern and emancipated in her behavior and outlook". In conversation, she often used the phrase "inshallah", and insisted that the Quran supported the equality of the sexes. Bhutto was anti-abortion and spoke forcefully against abortion, most notably at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, where she accused the West of "seeking to impose adultery, abortion, intercourse education and other such matters on individuals, societies, and religions which have their own social ethos".

Bhutto was a client of Mossack Fonseca, whose customer records were disclosed in the Panama Papers leak. 7 September 2001 London law firm Richard Rooney and Co told MF-BVI (mossack fonseca British virgin island) to create Petroline International Inc in the British Virgin Islands. Petroline International Inc is owned by Bhutto, her nephew Hassan Ali Jaffery Bhutto, and her aide and head of security Rehman Malik, who later became a Senator and Interior Minister in the government of Yousaf Raza Gillani. Mossack Fonseca had declined to do business with Bhutto's first company, similarly-named Petrofine FZC, established in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2000. The Petrofine was "politically sensitive," they said, and "declined to accept Mrs. Bhutto as a client". A United Nations committee chaired by former head of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, concluded in a 2005 investigation into abuses of the oil-for-food program that Petrofine FZC had paid US$2 million to the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein to obtain US$115–145 million in oil contracts.

In April 1999, the Ehtesab Bench of the Lahore High Court convicted Bhutto in absentia, giving her a five years prison sentence, an $8.6 million fine, and disqualifying her from public office. Bhutto was in London at the time of the judgment, and rather than returning to Pakistan she relocated to Dubai. She decided on Dubai because Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates, had been a longstanding friend of her family. She brought her three children to live there with her, settling into a villa in the Emirates Hills given to her by the Emirati government. She claimed that were she to return to Pakistan then she would be imprisoned and then murdered. She remained in Dubai for eight years, for five of which her husband remained imprisoned in Pakistan. Bhutto spent much of her time in exile fighting the corruption charges that were being brought against her and her husband. She also campaigned for his release from prison. Some of her close political advisers suggested that she abandon him for the sake of her political career, but she refused. While in Dubai, she also focused on raising her children and caring for her mother, whose Alzheimer's disease had progressed to a severe stage. Two years later a retrial was ordered after it was ascertained that undue political bias was exerted on the judges. She remained head of the PPP for the following nine years.

In October 1999, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pervez Musharraf, launched a military coup which ousted Sharif from power. Reacting to the military coup, Benazir said that she liked to see General Pervaiz Musharraf come on television and 'say that the army reacted because the prime minister had violated all the laws and he sought to divide the army'. She also expected Musharraf to say that army 'had no choice' and that 'they would hold elections within three months and returning to the barracks'. In April 2000, Sharif was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. At the request of the Saudi monarch, Sharif was released from prison after a year and exiled to Saudi Arabia; he was also disqualified from holding public office. In 2002, he amended the constitution to ban anyone serving more than two terms as Prime Minister, thus disqualifying both Bhutto and Sharif, whom he called "useless politicians". Musharraf also consolidated power around himself; in June 2001 he appointed himself to the Presidency, holding this position alongside his positions as chief executive and chief of the army staff. He was a secularist and repealed the Hudood Ordinances, an achievement Bhutto had been unable to make. In a 2002 referendum, Musharraf extended his presidential mandate for a further five years. Bhutto expressed concern that with mainstream politicians removed from Pakistan's political arena, the vacuum would be filled by Islamist extremists.

Newly re-elected, Sharif moved quickly to curtail the powers of the presidency and judiciary. He also removed the constitution's Eighth Amendment which had been used by successive presidents to oust both Bhutto and himself from office. In 1998, India tested its first nuclear weapon; Bhutto responded with an editorial for the Los Angeles Times in which she argued that the international community should go further than imposing economic sanctions on India, but should launch a preemptive bomb strike on India's nuclear facilities. She called on Sharif to retaliate with a series of Pakistani military tests. After Sharif's government did so, Bhutto called for Pakistan to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and arrive at a bilateral agreement on nuclear proliferation with India. Tensions between India and Pakistan resulted in the Kargil War of 1999; Bhutto observed the conflict from abroad, describing it as "Pakistan's biggest blunder".

Investigations into Bhutto's corruption were also launched in Europe. In 1998, a Swiss magistrate, Daniel Devaud, seized a safe-deposit box containing a $190,000 necklace that Bhutto had purchased in London's Bond Street the previous year. Over the following six years, he investigated how Bhutto had obtained the money used to buy this item. His investigations were followed by a BBC documentary team led by Owen Bennett-Jones. Devaud's investigations revealed a range of corrupt deals that Zardari had been involved with. It was discovered that Dassault, a French aircraft manufacturer, had agreed to pay Zardari and another Pakistani man $200 million to ensure he would facilitate a $4 billion sales of fighter jets. It was also revealed that in both Bhutto and Zardari had taken approximately $15 million in exchange for awarding a customs contract to the Swiss firms SGS/Cotecna when she was Prime Minister. Devaud concluded that Bhutto "knew she was acting in a criminally reprehensible manner by abusing her role in order to obtain for herself and for her husband considerable sums in the interest of her family at the cost of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan".

In the 1997 general election, some Pakistani feminist groups refused to back Bhutto's re-election because, despite her repeated promises, she had not removed the hudud ordinances that Zia's administration had introduced.

John Burns, a journalist from The New York Times, investigated the business transactions of Bhutto and his wife, exposing the scale of their corruption. By 1996, their takings through these various deals were estimated at $1.5 billion. A subsequent inquiry by Pakistan's Accountability Bureau found that in that year, Bhutto, her husband, and her mother only declared assets totaling $1.2 million, leaving out the extensive foreign accounts and properties that they possessed. Despite their significant earnings, the couple did not pay the amount of tax owed; between 1993 and 1994, Bhutto paid no income tax at all. In 1996, Transparency International ranked Pakistan as the world's second most corrupt country.

In September 1996, the Taliban secured power in Afghanistan. Bhutto's government was one of only three countries to recognize it as the legitimate Afghan government, a move that further distanced it from its Western allies.

Murtaza focused much of his criticism on Bhutto's husband Zardari, whom he blamed of being responsible for government corruption. He hung a picture of Zardari up in the guest toilet of his house as an act of disrespect to his brother-in-law. It is reported that in one incident, Murtaza invited Zardari to his house, only to have him pinned down by bodyguards and half his mustache forcibly shaved off. Not long after, on 20 September 1996, Murtaza was ambushed by police near Karachi; they opened fire, killing him and seven others. All witnesses were taken into police custody, where two of them died. It was widely believed in Pakistan that the killing had been ordered by a senior government figure; Murtaza's supporters thought that Bhutto and her husband were responsible. When Bhutto tried to attend her brother's funeral in Larkana, local Murtaza supporters pelted her car with rocks. At the funeral, Nusrat—who was suffering the early stages of Alzheimer's disease—also blamed Bhutto for her brother's death.

Bhutto initially blamed the killing on a conspiracy against her family. She brought in Scotland Yard to investigate, partly to quell rumors that she had ordered the killing, although the case remained unsolved. After Murtaza's death, Bhutto re-established a relationship with her mother. After Bhutto hinted that President Leghari had been involved in her brother's death, relations between the two broke down. Leghari sought the backing of the Army Chief, Karamat, to move against her premiership. Leghari dismissed Bhutto's government on 5 November 1996, citing the eighth amendment of the constitution; as evidence, he again cited charges of corruption but also added the suspicion that Bhutto had been involved in her brother's death. Bhutto challenged the constitutionality of Leghari's decision, taking the issue to the Supreme Court, but they ruled in agreement with the president. The Supreme Court's decision also resulted in the removal of all pro-Bhutto elements from the military. Zardari tried to fly to Dubai but was arrested in Lahore, charged with money laundering and involvement in Murtaza's murder. He remained in prison until 2004. In the ensuing election, which took place in February 1997, Sharif was re-elected.

Bhutto was a founding member of the Council of Women World Leaders, a group established in 1996. She appointed women judges and a women's division in the government, headed by a senior female civil servant. She also oversaw the establishment of a women's bank and all-female police stations. The fundamentalist Islamic laws introduced to restrict women's rights under Zia nevertheless remained in place, and no new legislation was put in place to empower women. Bhutto's failure to remove the hudood ordinances brought criticism from liberal circles and damaged her relations with women's and human rights groups.

On 20 July 1996, Qazi Hussain Ahmed of Jamaat e Islami announced to start protests against the government alleging corruption. Qazi Hussain resigned from the senate on 27 September and announced to start a long march against Benazir government. The protest started on 27 October 1996 by Jamaat e Islami and opposition parties. On 4 November 1996, Bhutto's government was dismissed by President Leghari primarily because of corruption, who used the Eighth Amendment discretionary powers to dissolve the government. Benazir was surprised when she discovered that it was not the military who had dismissed her but her own hand-picked puppet President who had used the power to dismiss her. She turned to the Supreme Court hoping for gaining Leghari's actions unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court justified and affirmed President Leghari's dismissal in a 6–1 ruling. Many military leaders who were close to the Prime minister rather than the President, did not want Benazir Bhutto's government to fall, as they resisted the Nawaz Sharif's conservatism.

Bhutto demanded the MQM to surrender to her government unconditionally. Although the operation was halted in 1995, amid violence continued and, Shahid Javed Burki, a professor of economics, stated, "Karachi problem was not so much an ethnic problem as it was an economic question." Amid union and labour strikes beginning to take place in Karachi and Lahore, which were encouraged by both Altaf Hussain and Nawaz Sharif to undermine her authority, Benazir Bhutto responded by disbanding those trade union and issuing orders to arrest the leaders of the trade unions, while on the other hand, she provided incentives to local workers and laborers as she had separated the workers from their union leaders successfully. Benazir Bhutto expanded the authoritative rights of Police Combatant Force and the provisional governments that tackled the local opposition aggressively. Bhutto, through her Internal Security Minister Naseerullah Babar, intensified the internal security operations and steps, gradually putting down the opposition's political rallies, while she did not completely abandon the reconciliation policy. In her own worlds, Benazir Bhutto announced: "There was no basis for [strikes] ... in view of the ongoing political process".

During her second term, relations with Indian Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao further deteriorated. Like her father, Benazir Bhutto used rhetoric to oppose India and campaign in the international community against the Indian nuclear program. On 1 May 1995, she used harsh language in her public warning to India that "continuation of [Indian] nuclear program would have terrible consequences". India responded to this saying she was interfering in an "internal matter" of India, and the Indian Army fired a RPG at the Kahuta, which further escalated events, leading to full-fledged war. When this news reached Bhutto, she responded by high-alerting the Air Force Strategic Command. It ordered heavily armed Arrows, Griffins, Black Panthers and the Black Spiders to begin air sorties and to patrol the Indo-Pakistan border on day-and-night regular missions. All of these squadrons are part of the Strategic Command. On 30 May, India test-fired a Prithvi-1 missile near the Pakistan border, which Bhutto condemned. She responded by deploying Shaheen-I missiles; however, they were not armed. Benazir Bhutto permitted the PAF to deploy the Crotale missile defence and the Anza-Mk-III near the Indian border, which escalated the conflict, but effectively kept the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force from launching any surprise attack.

In 1995, the ISI reported to Bhutto that Narasimha Rao had authorized nuclear tests and that they could be conducted at any minute. Benazir put the country's nuclear arsenal programme on high-alert made emergency preparations, and ordered the Pakistani armed forces to remain on high-alert. However the United States intervened, Indian operations for conducting the nuclear tests were called off and the Japanese government attempted to mediate. In 1996, Benazir Bhutto met with Japanese officials and warned India about conducting nuclear tests. She revealed for the first time that Pakistan had achieved parity with India in its capacity to produce nuclear weapons and their delivery capability. She told the Indian press, that Pakistan "cannot afford to negate the parity we maintain with India". These statements represented a departure from Pakistan's previous policy of "nuclear ambivalence". Bhutto issued a statement on the tests and told the international press that she condemned the Indian nuclear tests. "If [India] conducts a nuclear test, it would force her [Pakistan] to ... follow suit", she said.

Among those elected was Murtaza, who flew to Pakistan in November to take up his position as the elected representative for Larkana in the Sindh Assembly. Around ninety criminal charges had been brought against him under Zia's regime, so on arrival, Murtaza was arrested and held for eight months in solitary confinement. He espoused a socialist platform different from his sister's and called for internal elections within the PPP, which could have resulted in the removal of Bhutto. In June 1994, he was released on bail.

After the IJI government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was also dismissed on corruption charges, Bhutto led the PPP to victory in the 1993 elections. Her second term oversaw economic privatization and attempts to advance women's rights. Her government was damaged by several controversies, including the assassination of her brother Murtaza, a failed 1995 coup d'état, and a further bribery scandal involving her and her husband Asif Ali Zardari; in response to the latter, the President again dismissed her government. The PPP lost the 1997 election and in 1998 she went into self-exile in Dubai, leading her party mainly through proxies. A widening corruption inquiry culminated in a 2003 conviction in a Swiss court. Following United States-brokered negotiations with President Pervez Musharraf, she returned to Pakistan in 2007 to compete in the 2008 elections; her platform emphasized civilian oversight of the military and opposition to growing Islamist violence. After a political rally in Rawalpindi, she was assassinated. The Salafi jihadi group al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, although the involvement of the Pakistani Taliban and rogue elements of the intelligence services was widely suspected. She was buried at her family mausoleum.

Despite an economic recovery in late 1993, the IJI government faced public unease about the direction of the country and industrialization that revolved around and centered only in Punjab Province. Amid protest and civil disorder in Sindh Province following the imposition of Operation Clean-up, the IDA government lost control of the province. The Peoples Party attacked the IDA government's record on unemployment and industrial racism.

Sharif had attempted to reduce the president's powers. Relations between Sharif and President Khan also soured and the prime minister came under pressure to resign from the armed forces. With growing tensions between him and President Khan, in April 1993 the latter used the Eighth Amendment to dismiss Sharif as Prime Minister, citing corruption and misadministration. An agreement was reached whereby both Sharif and Khan would step down. The military formed an interim government and called a general election for October 1993. Their policies were very similar but a clash of personalities occurred, with both parties making many promises but not explaining how they were going to pay for them. Bhutto promised price supports for agriculture, pledged a partnership between government and business, and campaigned strongly for the female vote.

In 1993, Bhutto declared herself as chair of the PPP for life. This move reflected the lack of internal democracy within the party, which was increasingly referred to as the "Bhutto Family Party" (BFP). Murtaza, who was living in asylum in Syria, decided to take part in the forthcoming election. Bhutto did not want him to join the PPP, fearing him as a potential challenger to her leadership of the party; conversely, their mother supported his political career.

Zardari was freed from prison after Bhutto returned to office in 1993.

In the October 1993 general election, the PPP won the most seats, although it fell short of an outright majority, with 86 seats. Sharif's new party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), came second with 73 seats. The PPP performed extremely well in Bhutto's native province, Sindh, and rural Punjab, while the PML-N was strongest in industrial Punjab and the largest cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. Bhutto was again prime minister, but this time had a weaker parliamentary mandate than she had had in 1988. She was officially sworn in on 19 October 1993.

Bhutto ordered the construction of a new residence in Islamabad; it covered 110 acres of ground and cost $50 million to construct. In 1993, Bhutto declared that her family burial ground would be converted into an official mausoleum and would undergo significant expansion. She dropped the first architect she employed to do the job after deciding that she wanted a more Islamic design; she replaced him with Waqar Akbar Rizvi, instructing him to visit the tombs of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Ruhollah Khomeini for inspiration. In 1995, Zardari purchased a fifteen-bedroom country house at Rockwood in Surrey, southern England; to hide evidence of ownership, he obtained the property through companies based in the Isle of Man. She spent much of her second term abroad, making 24 foreign trips during its first twelve months.

Bhutto stated that once back in the office, she asked for reasons why the Kahuta enrichment plant had broken her command by producing weapons-grade uranium and implemented a new system of security at the plant to provide greater oversight of the facility's scientists. Both the military and ISI, however, supported the development of material that could produce viable nuclear weaponry. India had developed the Agni missile a system which would allow the country to strike all of Pakistan's major cities, and as a counter, many in the Pakistani administration believed that they needed an equivalent launch pad system for their nuclear warheads. They decided to make a deal with the North Korean government, exchanging information about enrichment for missile technology. Bhutto later claimed that on her 1993 visit to North Korea, she secretly carried a computer CD containing nuclear data, although she subsequently retracted this claim.

In 1993, Murtaza returned to Pakistan, where he gained a following within the PPP. He claimed that it was he, rather than his sister, who was the standard-bearer for their father's championing of the downtrodden. On arrival, he was arrested for his part in the earlier plane hijacking and remained imprisoned for eight months. In 1995, he established his own party, the PPP (Shaheed Bhutto); the party's name implied that he was closer to the Bhutto's family's Shaheed than his sister, whom he symbolically distanced from the family by referring to her as "Begum Zardari". Nusrat assisted him in organizing Murtaza's election campaign for the Sindh provincial assembly. Bhutto was so angry with her mother's actions that she ousted her as co-chair of the PPP. Animosity grew between the two siblings.

Her approval poll rose by 38% after she appeared and said in a private television interview after the elections: "We are unhappy with the manner in which tampered electoral lists were provided in a majority of constituencies; our voters were turned away." The Conservatives attracted voters from religious society (MMA) whose support had collapsed. A contributor to the Friday Times wrote: "Both of them (Nawaz and Benazir) have done so badly in the past, it will be very difficult for them to do worse now. If Bhutto's government fails, everyone knows there will be no new elections. The army will take over". In confidential official documents Benazir Bhutto had objected to the number of Urdu speaking class in 1993 elections, in the context that she had no Urdu-speaking sentiment in her circle and discrimination was continued even in her government. Her stance on these issues was perceived as part of rising public disclosure which Altaf Hussain called "racism". Due to Benazir Bhutto's stubbornness and authoritative actions, her political rivals gave her the nickname "Iron Lady" of Pakistan. No response was issued by Bhutto, but she soon associated with the term.

During her second term, Bhutto continued to follow former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's privatization policies, which she called a "disciplined macroeconomics policy". After the 1993 general elections, the privatisation programme of state-owned banks and utilities accelerated; more than ₨ 42 billion was raised from the sale of nationalised corporations and industries, and another US$20 billion from the foreign investment made the United States. After 1993, the country's national economy again entered in the second period of the stagflation and more roughly began bite the country's financial resources and the financial capital. Bhutto's second government found it extremely difficult to counter the second era of stagflation with Pressler amendment and the US financial and military embargo tightened its position. After a year of study, Bhutto implemented and enforced the Eighth Plan to overcome the stagflation by creating a dependable and effective mechanism for accelerating economic and social progress. But, according to American ambassador to Pakistan, William Milam's bibliography, Bangladesh and Pakistan: Flirting with Failure in South Asia, the Eighth Plan (which reflected the planned economy of the Soviet Union) was doomed to meet with failure from the very beginning of 1994, as the policies were weak and incoherent.

Major-General Pervez Musharraf worked closely with Bhutto and her government in formulating an Israel strategy. In 1993 Bhutto ordered Musharraf, then Director-General of the Pakistani Army's Directorate-General for the Military Operation (DGMO), to join her state visit to the United States, unusual and unconventional participation. Bhutto and Musharraf chaired a secret meeting with Israeli officials who traveled to the US especially for the meeting. Under Bhutto's guidance Musharraf intensified the ISI's liaison with Israel's Mossad. A final meeting took place in 1995, which Musharraf also joined. Bhutto also strengthened relations with communist Vietnam, and visited Vietnam to sign an agreement for mutual trade and international political co-operation the two countries. In 1995, Benazir Bhutto made another state visit to the United States and held talks with U.S. President Bill Clinton. Bhutto urged him to revise the Pressler Amendment and launch a campaign against extremism. She criticized US nonproliferation policy and demanded that the United States honor its contractual obligation.

In 1990, Major General Pervez Musharraf proposed a military invasion of Kargil as part of an attempt to annex Kashmir; Bhutto refused to back the plan, believing that the international condemnation would be severe. With both armies mobilizing on either side of the border, there were growing fears that tensions over Kashmir could result in a nuclear war between Pakistan and India. The U.S. sent special envoy Robert Gates to the region to dissuade the Pakistanis from going to war. He could not meet Bhutto—who was in Yemen as part of a tour of the Gulf states—but met with President Khan, informing him that the U.S. would not support Pakistani military action. He convinced Pakistan to step back from hostilities and to disband the Kashmiri militant training camps in its territory.

The ISI organised Operation Midnight Jackal, through which they used bribery and intimidation to discourage National Assembly members from voting with the PPP. By 1990, the revelation of Midnight Jackal lessened President Khan's influence in national politics, government and the military.

Tales of corruption in public-sector industries began to surface, which undermined the credibility of Bhutto. The unemployment and labor strikes began to take place which halted and jammed the economic wheel of the country, and Bhutto was unable to solve these issues due to the cold war with the President. In August 1990, Khan dismissed Bhutto's government under the Eighth Amendment of the constitution. He claimed that this was necessary owing to her government's corruption and inability to maintain law and order. A caretaker government under the control of former PPP member Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi was sworn in, with Khan declaring a state of national emergency.

In the 1990 general election, the PPP only secured 45 of the 217 seats. The IJI, under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif, won a majority in the Parliament, and Sharif became Prime Minister. Bhutto became the leader of the opposition. From this position she attacked Sharif's every policy, highlighting his government's failings in dealing with Pakistan's problems of poverty, unemployment, and lack of healthcare, although not also discussing her own administration's failures on those same issues. To journalists she remained unrepentant about her period in office, insisting that she had made no mistakes. As dissatisfaction with Sharif's government grew, the PPP began to restore the support it had lost during Bhutto's premiership. Encouraging public protests, in November 1992, she organized a 10-mile march from Rawalpindi to Islamabad in protest at the IJI government. Sharif ordered her to be placed under house arrest to prevent her instigating any uprisings.

There were far fewer public hopes regarding the second Bhutto premiership than there had been for the first. The country's financial situation left no funds for her to pursue the desired social programs; 70% of national revenues went on paying off the national debt, while much of the other 30% went on the military, which would not tolerate cuts to its budget. The 1990s had seen severe economic problems for Pakistan; the country's economic growth had declined to between 3 and 4%, poverty rose to 33%, and the percentage of households living in absolute poverty doubled.

After President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed Bhutto's first government on 6 August 1990 because of corruption allegations, the government of Pakistan directed its intelligence agencies to investigate. Nawaz Sharif became prime minister in the ensuing elections and intensified prosecution investigation of Bhutto. Pakistani embassies through western Europe—in France, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, and Britain—were directed to investigate. Bhutto and her husband Zardari faced several legal proceedings, including a charge in Switzerland of money-laundering through Swiss banks. While never convicted, Zardari spent eight years in prison on similar corruption charges. Released on bail in 2004, Zardari hinted that while in prison he was tortured; human rights groups have supported his claim that his rights were violated.

During her first premiership, Bhutto went on a number of foreign trips, enhancing her image as the first female Prime Minister in the Islamic world. In these, she sought to attract foreign investment and aid for Pakistan. She also made efforts to cultivate good relationships with the leaders of Islamic countries who had also had good relationships with her father, including Libya's Gaddafi, Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Zayed, and the Saudi royal family. In 1989, she attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, where Pakistan was re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations. In January 1989, she made a second pilgrimage to Mecca, and in June visited the U.S. to address both houses of Congress and giving the commencement speech at Harvard.

After Bhutto became Prime Minister, President Khan and the military were reluctant to tell her about Pakistan's nuclear program, and it remains unknown how much Bhutto knew about the issue during her first term in office. She later related that to find out more she contacted key scientists in the program, such as A. Q. Khan, herself, bypassing the president and military hierarchy. On her trip to the United States, she told Congress that "we do not possess, nor do we intend to make, a nuclear device". While in Washington D.C., she met with CIA director William Webster, who showed her a mock-up of the Pakistani nuclear weapon and stated his opinion that research the project it had reached a crescendo in the final years of Zia's government. William's revelations came as a shock to Bhutto, who was unaware of how advanced Pakistan's nuclear development had become. The United States wanted to prevent Pakistan from creating such a device, and President George H. W. Bush informed her that U.S. military aid to the country would cease unless Pakistan refrained from producing nuclear bomb cores, the final step in creating the weapon. Between January and March 1989, she authorized cold tests of nuclear weaponry, without fissionable material, although this did not satisfy the military authorities. In 1990, shortly before leaving office, the American Ambassador Robert Oakley informed her that information obtained by U.S. satellites indicated that her commitment to not produce weapons-grade uranium had been breached at the Kahuta enrichment plant.

In May 1988, Zia dissolved the assemblies and called a November election. He had not wanted Bhutto to win, and his choice of date may have been deliberately chosen to coincide with the date when Bhutto was projected to give birth, thus hindering her ability to campaign. He also sought to hinder her chances by declaring that the election would be held on a non-party basis, with candidates standing as individuals rather than as representatives of a political party. Bhutto and the PPP launched a legal challenge against this latter stipulation. In August, Zia suddenly died when his aircraft crashed shortly after take-off from Bahawalpur Airport. A joint U.S.–Pakistani investigation was unable to ascertain the cause of the crash, although sabotage was widely suspected, with the Soviets, Indians, and Israelis all presented as potential culprits. Bhutto privately attributed it to an act of God. After his death, the Supreme Court announced that the election should take place on a party basis, rather than the non-party basis that Zia had desired.

President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was constitutionally obliged to invite Bhutto to form the next government, but was reticent to do so. Under growing pressure—including from the U.S., a key ally—he reluctantly did so two weeks after the election. To build her government, Bhutto formed a coalition with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party, which had 13 seats in parliament, an action that upset the Sindhi nationalist faction within her party. She was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Pakistan on 2 December 1988. Bhutto became the first female Prime Minister in a Muslim-majority country, as well as the youngest elected leader in the Islamic world. She was the world's youngest Prime Minister, the youngest female Prime Minister ever elected, and Pakistan's second nationally elected Prime Minister. After her election, party workers were encouraged to refer to her as Mohtarma ("respected lady"). There was hope among many observers that her premiership would mark a new era of multi-party democracy, growing gender equality, and better relations with India. She personally stated that her electoral victory was "the tipping point in the debate raging in the Muslim world on the role of women in Islam".

In 1988, Bhutto published her autobiography, sub-titled Daughter of the East in its British edition and Daughter of Destiny in the United States. It was written with the assistance of an American ghost writer. Bhutto biographer Brooke Allen stating that it was "pre-eminently a political performance" written for a Western audience, with the intent of "seducing Western opinion and opinion-makers". As well as whitewashing her father's regime, Bhutto's autobiography contained several factual falsifications; she wished to present herself as a ground-breaker when it came to gender issues, and thus presented her mother Nusrat as being far more conservative than she really was, for instance falsely claiming that Nusrat had urged her to wear the burqa when she had reached adolescence.

The couple had three children: a son, Bilawal, was born in September 1988, while she was campaigning for that year's election. She also had two daughters, Bakhtawar and Aseefa. When she gave birth to Bakhtawar in 1990, she became the first elected head of government to give birth while in office. Bhutto was devoted to her father and husband. In later life, she increasingly came to see success through the prism of her family.

Back in Pakistan, she agreed to an arranged marriage; her mother selected Asif Ali Zardari as a suitable husband. He was from a landowning family, and his father had obtained additional wealth through the construction and cinema industries. The marriage ceremony took place in Karachi in December 1987, and was billed as the "People's Wedding", serving as a de facto political rally. At a subsequent party in Lyari attended by 200,000, some fired Kalashnikovs into the air in celebration, accidentally resulting in one death and multiple injuries. Bhutto would have been aware that being married gave her an image of respectability which would improve her chances of being elected. She kept the Bhutto family name rather than taking that of her new husband. After the wedding, she soon became pregnant with her son, Bilawal.

On returning to Pakistan in 1987, Bhutto's mother arranged for her marriage to the businessman Asif Ali Zardari. Many of her friends were surprised that Bhutto acquiesced to Islamic tradition given her liberal attitudes, however, she later related that she "felt obligations to my family and my religion" to go through with it and that her high public profile made it difficult for her to find a husband through other means. She consistently presented an image of loyalty to her husband, throughout the many accusations and periods of imprisonment he faced. Allen expected that it would probably never be known how happy the couple's marriage was, for Bhutto "always projected support and loyalty for her unpopular mate".

In July 1985, Shahnawaz died under unexplained circumstances in the French city of Cannes. Bhutto varyingly claimed that Shahnawaz had been murdered by his wife, Raehana, or had been killed on the orders of Zia. Zia's government allowed her to bring her brother's body to Pakistan in August, where it could be interred in the family cemetery at Larkana. Shortly after the burial, she was arrested and detained under house arrest in Karachi until November, at which point she was released and returned to Europe. In December 1985, martial law was lifted in Pakistan and Bhutto decided to return home. She arrived at Lahore Airport in April 1986, where she was greeted by a large crowd. An estimated two million people came to see her speak at Iqbal Park, where she rallied against Zia's regime. She then visited Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan, speaking to further crowds, and re-established links with the MRD, taking part in a pro-democracy rally on Independence Day on 14 August. Following the rally, she was again arrested and detained for several weeks in Landhi Jail.

Her brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, turned to paramilitary action, founding the Al Zulfikar group which trained its members to carry out acts of assassination and sabotage to oust the military government. After Al Zulfikar orchestrated the 1981 Pakistan International Airlines hijacking, the government used this as the pretext for re-arresting Bhutto and her mother in March. Bhutto disapproved of the hijacking, believing that it strengthened Zia's hand. In July 1981, Nusrat was released so that she could seek medical treatment for cancer abroad, but Bhutto was not. She was kept for a time in Karachi before being moved to Sukkur prison and then back again to Karachi. During much of this period, she was held in solitary confinement, and experienced a range of health problems, including hair loss, gynaecological issues, and anorexia. In December, she was moved into house arrest, where she would remain for two years. In the United States—a key ally of Zia's regime—Peter Galbraith helped rally support for Bhutto, including the politicians Claiborne Pell and James Buckley. When Zia visited Washington D.C. in December 1982, they raised the issue of Bhutto's imprisonment with him. As international pressure mounted, the Pakistani government agreed to release her, placing her on a flight to Geneva in January 1984.

In the 1980s, ethnic violence had broken out in Sindh province, with most of those killed being mohajirs. Late in 1989, the MQM—whose party represented mohajir interests—left Bhutto's coalition government and joined the parliamentary election. The MQM then joined other voices in calling for a general strike in protest at her government. In May 1990, she ordered the army to restore peace in Karachi and Hyderabad. Within months of Bhutto's election, dissolution had set in among her liberal supporters. Her narrow majority in the National Assembly had left her unable to reverse many of the Islamist reforms that Zia had introduced. She did not repeal the Hudood Ordinances, which remained in law until 2006. Her opposition to legalised abortion frustrated many Pakistani feminists. Throughout her first term, Bhutto was criticized for being indecisive and unable to maintain control. There had been anger that her husband had been allowed to attend cabinet meetings despite not being a member of the government. He was also accused of receiving kickbacks and gained the nickname "Mr Ten Percent". The ISI had extensively spied upon Bhutto and her husband throughout her period in office, President Khan privately paid plaintiffs to file corruption suits against Bhutto's husband. While the investigations into his corruption were therefore politically motivated, there also was significant evidence of his guilt in this regard.

At Oxford, she led a campaign calling for the university to give her father an honorary degree; she gained the support of her father's old tutor, the historian Hugh Trevor Roper. Bhutto's campaign was opposed by counter-protests, who believed that her father's supposed involvement in the persecution of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and atrocities during the Bangladesh Liberation War made him unsuitable. Ultimately, the university declined to award the honorary degree. In later years, Bhutto acknowledged that at this time she had been ignorant of the Pakistani Army's complicity in the atrocities in Bangladesh, although always maintained that her father was blameless on the issue. After her Oxford education, she returned to Pakistan in June 1977, where she was scheduled to work at the Prime Minister's office and the "Inter-Provincial Council of Common Interests" during the rest of the summer. Intent on a career in the Pakistani Foreign Service, she was scheduled to take the service's entrance exams later in the year.

In July 1977, Zulfikar Bhutto—who had just been re-elected in a general election—was overthrown in a military coup led by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the Chief of Army Staff. Both Zulfikar and Benazir believed that Zia's coup had been assisted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Zulfikar claimed that in a 1976 meeting, U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger had told him that the U.S. would make "a horrible example" of him if he did not terminate Pakistan's efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Now in control of the country, Zia suspended the constitution, and initiated a regime that combined military rule with social programs designed to further the Islamization of Pakistani society according to Islamic fundamentalist principles. Socialists, intellectuals, and journalists were arrested. Zulfikar, too, was arrested, initially for less than a month. After a crowd of over one million people greeted Zulfikar's release in Karachi and demonstrations were held in support of the ousted president, Zia decided to eliminate him permanently.

After the coup, Zulfikar had appointed his wife co-chair of the PPP, while in October 1977 Benazir was appointed to the PPP's central committee. After Zulfikar's death, Benazir replaced his role in the party, becoming its co-leader. In February 1981, she formally established the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), a group that brought together the PPP with other political parties in the country: the Pakistan Muslim League, Pakistan Democratic Party, Pakistan MazdoorKisan Party, National Awami Party, QuomiMahaz-e-Azadi, Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam, and the Tahrik-i-Istiqlal. The MRD called for a four-point program: an end to martial law, the restoration of the 1973 constitution, parliamentary elections, and the transfer of political power from the military to the elected representatives. There was nevertheless much mutual suspicion among the parties in the MRD, with Bhutto having reluctantly allowed groups that firmly opposed her father's government to join.

While in exile, Benazir became a rallying point for the PPP. Her flat became the unofficial headquarters of its members in exile; these volunteers devoted themselves to raising international awareness of the political prisoners being held by Zia's regime. Although she was the party's acting chairperson, many of its elder members were unhappy with this situation, believing her insufficiently committed to socialism and fearing that the party would become nothing more than a Bhutto family fiefdom. Murtaza believed that it was he, and not Benazir, who was their father's designated political heir; as evidence, he cited that he had been asked to manage his father's Larkana constituency in the 1977 general election. Bhutto biographer Shyam Bhatia thought that this was probably Zulfikar's intention, as the latter would have recognized the significant impediments to a woman being elected leader in a conservative Islamic society like Pakistan. Benazir nevertheless maintained that her father had always wanted her to become a politician.

In September, Zulfikar was re-arrested and charged with the 1974 murder of Muhammad Ahmed Khan Kasuri, the father of Ahmed Raza Kasuri, a vocal critic of Zulfikar's government. After the coup, Bhutto's brothers were sent abroad to canvass international support for their father. Bhutto and her mother remained in Pakistan, although they were repeatedly detained for short periods. When she was able, Bhutto visited her father in prison. She and her mother put out a book about their father and encouraged PPP supporters to demonstrate in support of him. She also assisted in the preparation of his defence case, which was put before first the Lahore High Court, which sentenced him to death, and then the Supreme Court, which upheld that decision. Former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark attended the trial, relating that it was a kangaroo court and that Zulfikar did not receive a fair trial. Just before his execution, Zulfikar urged his wife and daughter to leave Pakistan, but they refused. He was executed by hanging in April 1979. Bhutto and Nusrat were then imprisoned for six months, before being released and placed under house arrest for a further six months. The two women were only fully released in April 1980.

Of mixed Sindhi and Kurdish parentage, Bhutto was born in Karachi to a politically important, wealthy aristocratic family. Her father, the PPP's founder, and leader Zulfikar, was elected Prime Minister on a socialist platform in 1973. Bhutto studied at Harvard University and the University of Oxford, where she was President of the Oxford Union. She returned to Pakistan in 1977, shortly before her father was ousted in a military coup and executed. Bhutto and her mother Nusrat took control of the PPP and led the country's Movement for the Restoration of Democracy; Bhutto was repeatedly imprisoned by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's military government and then exiled to Britain in 1984. She returned in 1986 and—influenced by Thatcherite economics—transformed the PPP's platform from a socialist to a liberal one, before leading it to victory in the 1988 election. As Prime Minister, her attempts at reform were stifled by conservative and Islamist forces, including President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the powerful military. Her administration was accused of corruption and nepotism and dismissed by Khan in 1990. Intelligence services rigged that year's election to ensure a victory for the conservative Islamic Democratic Alliance (IJI), at which Bhutto became Leader of the Opposition.

In autumn 1973, Bhutto relocated to the United Kingdom and began studying for a second undergraduate degree, in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. After three years, she received a second-class degree. At her father's insistence, she remained in Oxford to study for a one-year postgraduate degree, reading international law and diplomacy; at this point she attended St Catherine's College, Oxford. One of her fellow students at Oxford stated that there, she "epitomized the classic spoilt rich girl from a third world country". She nevertheless made friends, who later described her as a humorous and intellectually curious individual. In 1977, she was elected President of the Oxford Union debating society, the first Asian woman to hold that post. After her three-month term was up, she was succeeded by her close friend, Victoria Schofield. Bhutto was also active in the local Conservative Association and it is through this connection that she is widely believed to have introduced future British Prime Minister, Theresa May, to her future husband Philip May. Despite the ongoing tensions between Pakistan and India, she interacted socially with Indian students, and while at Oxford also made proposals of marriage to two fellow Pakistani students, but was rebuffed on both occasions. Bhutto biographer Brooke Allen thought that her time at Oxford was "almost certainly the happiest, most carefree time of her life".

Bhutto initially attempted to improve relations with neighbouring India, withdrawing Zia's offer of a no-war pact and announcing the 1972 Simla Agreement as the basis of future relations. She invited Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia as her guests for a three-day visit in Islamabad following the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit. Rajiv returned on a bilateral visit six months later. She pleased him by revoking Zia's offer of the Nishan-e-Pakistan award to the former Indian leader Morarji Desai. The two countries agreed to reduce their military levels along the border and agreed not to attack their respective nuclear installations. This warming of relations angered many domestic Islamist and conservative forces, who alleged that she and Gandhi were having a sexual relationship and placed renewed emphasis on the fact that Bhutto's paternal grandmother had been born to a Hindu family. Bhutto claimed that she terminated support for Sikh separatists active in India, something which Zia had encouraged to destabilise Indian control in the Punjab.

In 1971, while she was at Harvard, Zulfikar invited her to join him in New York City, where he was involved in a United Nations Security Council meeting on that year's Indo-Pakistani War. In December 1971, Zulfikar assumed the presidency of Pakistan, the first democratically elected leader after 13 years of military rule. In 1972, Benazir accompanied her father to the India-Pakistan Summit in Simla as a replacement for her mother, who was ill. There, she was introduced to the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. While in Simla, she attracted much attention from both local and national Indian press, the first time she received such notice. She attributed this to the fact that—in her words—she "symbolized a new generation. I had never been an Indian. I had been born in independent Pakistan. I was free of the complexes and prejudices which had torn Indians and Pakistanis apart in the bloody trauma of partition." In 1974, she was flown to Lahore to accompany her father at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's summit. Here, she met a number of the assembled senior Muslim world leaders, who included Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Egypt's Anwar Sadat, Syria's Hafez al-Assad, Saudi Arabia's Faisal, and Jordan's Hussein.

Bhutto was an economist by profession; therefore during her terms as prime minister, she herself took charge of the Ministry of Finance. Bhutto sought to improve the country's economy which was declining as time was passing. Benazir disagreed with her father's nationalization and socialist economics. Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Benazir attempted to privatize major industries that were nationalized in the 1970s. Bhutto promised to end the nationalisation programme and to carry out the industrialisation programme by means other than state intervention. However, controversially, Bhutto did not carry out the denationalization program or liberalization of the economy during her first government. No nationalized units were privatized, few economic regulations were reviewed.

Pakistan suffered a currency crisis when the government failed to arrest the 30% fall in the value of the Pakistani Rupee from ₨. 21 to ₨.30 compared to the United States dollar. Soon economic progress became her top priority but her investment and industrialization programs faced major setbacks due to conceptions formed by investors based upon her People's Party nationalization program in the 1970s. By the 1990s, Khan and Bhutto's government had also ultimately lost the currency war with the Indian Rupee which beat the value of Pakistan rupee for the first time in the 1970s. Bhutto's denationalization program also suffered from many political setbacks, as many of her government members were either directly or indirectly involved with the government corruption in major government-owned industries, and her appointed government members allegedly sabotaged her efforts to privatize the industries.

Bhutto admired the Thatcherite economic policies pursued by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom; she was, according to biographer Mushtaq Ahmed, a "zealous convert" to privatization and market economics. Bhutto advocated the creation of an expanded economically and politically stable middle class in Pakistan, believing that this was needed in order to sustain a stable democratic state. Allen commented that although the PPP had once been officially socialist in ideology, Bhutto "was not a natural socialist, or even as adept at talking the talk as Zulfikar had been". She disagreed with her father's socialist economic policies, and when in power sought to privatize various industries that had been nationalized in the 1970s. Ahmed thus suggested that while under Bhutto the PPP continued to profess ideals of egalitarianism and claimed it would enhance the welfare of peasants and workers, such "progressive phraseology" couched an absence of economic policies to benefit the poor. Instead, Ahmed thought, its policies primarily benefited "the privileged classes" and was thus a right-wing rather than left-wing party.

From 1969 to 1973, Bhutto studied for an undergraduate degree at Radcliffe College, Harvard University. She started when she was sixteen, which was younger than normal, but Zulfikar had pulled strings to allow her premature admittance. Zulfikar asked his friend John Kenneth Galbraith, an economics professor at Harvard who had formerly been a U.S. ambassador to India, to be her local guardian. Through him, Bhutto met his son Peter Galbraith, who became a lifelong friend. Murtaza joined Bhutto at Harvard a year later. Bhutto found it difficult adjusting to life in the United States. A fellow student said she "cried most of her first semester", although Bhutto later called her time at Harvard "four of the happiest years of my life". She became a campus tour guide and the social secretary of her dormitory, Eliot House. She involved herself in campaigns against American involvement in the Vietnam War, joining a Moratorium Day protest on Boston Common. She encountered activists involved in second wave feminism although was sceptical of some of the views expressed within the movement. At Harvard, Bhutto majored in comparative government and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in 1973.

When Bhutto was five, her father became the cabinet minister for energy, and when she was nine he became the country's foreign minister. From an early age, she was exposed to foreign diplomats and figures who were visiting her father, among them Zhou Enlai, Henry Kissinger, and Hubert Humphrey. When she was thirteen, he resigned from the government and a year later established his own political party, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). The PPP used the motto "Islam is our faith, democracy is our policy, socialism is our economy. All power to the people." It employed a populist strategy to attract votes, promising "roti, kapra aur makan" (bread, clothes, and housing) for every Pakistani and insisting that the disputed territory of Kashmir would be transferred from Indian to Pakistani control. Benazir immediately joined. Amid riots against the government of President Ayub Khan, in 1968 Zulfikar was arrested and imprisoned for three months, during which he wrote to Benazir to encourage her studies.

Benazir's first language was English; as a child she spoke Urdu less frequently, and barely spoke the local Sindhi language. Benazir initially attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School in Karachi. She was then sent to the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi and from there to the Jesus and Mary Convent, a boarding school in Murree. Murree is near the border with India, and during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 Bhutto and the other pupils underwent air-raid practices. Taking her exams in December 1968, Bhutto passed her O-levels with high grades.

Benazir Bhutto (Sindhi: بينظير ڀُٽو ‎; Urdu: بینظیر بھٹو ‎ ; Urdu pronunciation: [beːnəˈziːr ˈbʱʊʈ.ʈoː] ; 21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim majority nation. Ideologically a liberal and a secularist, she chaired or co-chaired the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) from the early 1980s until her assassination in 2007.

Bhutto was born on 21 June 1953 in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Her father was the politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and her mother was Begum Nusrat Ispahani, of Iranian Kurdish parentage. Zulfikar was the son of Shah Nawaz Bhutto, a prominent politician who had served as Prime Minister of the Junagadh State. The Bhuttos were aristocratic, wealthy landlords from Sindh, part of the waderos or landed gentry. They were Sunni Muslims, although Nusrat had been born into a Shia Muslim family before converting to Sunnism on her marriage. The couple had married in September 1951, and Benazir was their first child. She was given the name of an aunt who had died young. The Bhutto's three younger children were Murtaza (born 1954), Sanam (1957), and Shahnawaz (1958). When Shah Nawaz died in 1957, Zulfikar inherited the family's land holdings, making him extremely wealthy.

After accusations of being too conciliatory towards India, Bhutto took a harder line against them, particularly on the Kashmir conflict. Amid growing Kashmiri protests against Indian rule, in interviews Bhutto expressed support for the Kashmiri Muslim community. She called on the United Nations to oversee the Kashmir plebiscite originally promised in 1948. In January 1990, Indian police opened fire on a pro-independence rally in Kashmir, killing fifty and flaming tensions in the region. Bhutto visited a training camp for pro-independence Kashmiri militants on the Pakistani side of the border and pledged $5 million for their cause; she followed this with further statements in support of the militant groups. In one speech, she incited Kashmiri Muslims to rise up against their administration. Later, in a 1993 interview, Bhutto stated that supporting proxy wars in Punjab and Kashmir was the "one right thing" undertaken by Zia, presenting these in part as revenge for India's role in "the humiliating loss of Bangladesh".