Abstract
Pakistan has been a victim of leadership crisis throughout its history of seven decades. This crisis owes its origin and development mainly to over development of non-representative institutions of civil and military bureaucracy and recurrent experience of military authoritarian regimes. In such a restrictive political atmosphere there rose to the political scene a leader who had will, guts and popular acclaim to challenge Ayub Khan when Ayub’s grip on power was yet firm. This leader was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who established his political party—Pakistan People’s Party—and developed it into a mass movement during the anti-Ayub campaign which culminated into the downfall of Ayub and his resignation from power in 1969. Bhutto gave his nascent party new heights and was able to successfully contest elections of 1970 with securing 81 National Assembly seats but all from the West Pakistan. The party that won 1970 elections was the Pakistan Awami League which got overall simple majority but almost all seats from East Pakistan (160 out of 162). However, the crisis of transfer of power deepened when Yahya Khan showed unwillingness to transfer power and the political movement in East Pakistan developed into a separatist movement culminating into secession of East Pakistan in December 1971. The Pakistan People’s Party, in comparison to Awami League, was a new entrant but its meteoric rise was, in fact, due to the charisma of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who galvanized the party and achieved stunning success. However, Bhutto’s downfall was also as meteoric as was his rise. There were many factors but his political behaviour—the way he exercised power— contributed enormously in his downfall. This article outlines, first, his formative influences and the process through which he assumed leadership role and was able to leave an indelible imprint on the history of country. Second, while in power he carried out reforms not only those he had pledged in his election manifesto but more: in this way he resorted to broaden his powerbase in transactional and transformational leadership paradigm. Third, having entrenched himself in the power spectrum of Pakistan he started behaving like a typical Sindhi wadera. He resorted to exercising power in a very arbitrary manner and this political behavior, the details of which ensue in this paper, explains his downfall and ouster from power.
Muhammad Abrar Zahoor. (2017) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: Political Behaviour And Ouster from Power, Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society, Volume 30, Issue 2.
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