No PM in Pakistan ever completed full term in office; all you need to know

Pakistan and India became independent nations in the same year 1947. Despite this, they have had vastly different trajectories since then. No prime minister has even been able to complete a full-term in office in our neighbouring state.  

While Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan was assassinated, many others left office due to their governments being dissolved or dismissed or imposition of martial law.

Many also resigned from their office and remaining others were disqualified by the Pakistan Supreme Court. These facts assume importance as the incumbent Prime Minister – Imran Khan – stares at a no-trust vote or no-confidence motion moved against him, and his government on the verge of collapsing.  

Khan will also be the first-ever Prime Minister to leave the office through a no-confidence motion if he fails to prove his majority. 

A look at how Pakistan was formed

Rewind the clock back by 75 years to February 20, 1947, the then British Prime Minister Clement Atlee said that colonial rule over the South Asian subcontinent shall come to an end on “a date not later than June 1948”. Almost a month later, on March 22, 1947, Sir Louis Mountbatten arrives in Delhi as the last viceroy of India with a brief to transfer power and leave the country at the earliest.  

Three months later in June, Mountbatten, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and five other leaders sit around at a conference table and agree to partition the subcontinent. After this meeting, the viceroy announces August 15 as the date of the transfer of power.  

Following this, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a British barrister, who never visited India, was tasked with redrawing the South Asian Map in 40 days. As per this map, the Muslim-majority north-west and north-east became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on August 14 and the rest became secular and independent India on August 15.  

A snapshot of Pakistani politics from 1947-71 and after  

Pakistan was initially a parliamentary democracy with a constituent assembly that was charged with drafting a constitution and serving as the new legislative body, a system which was eventually reduced to zilch by an overbearing central leadership.  

After Pakistan became an independent country, its founding father or Qaed-e-Azam as he is called, Mohammad Ali Jinnah took charge as the Governor-General of the newly-formed country and he maintained a powerful central government under his authority. When Jinnah died in 1948, Khawaja Nazimuddin became the Governor-General but real powers vested with Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan.  

Liaqat Ali Khan’s tenure was marred by the Bengali population’s resentment of the non-acceptance of Bengali as an official language, the domination of bureaucracy by non-Bengalis and appropriation of province-related functions and revenue by the central government.  

Post Liaqat Ali Khan’s assassination at Rawalpindi’s Company Bagh in 1951, Khawaja Nazimuddin took charge as the Prime Minister and installed Ghulam Mohammad as the Governor-General. Nazimuddin is overthrown by Mohammad in 1953 as Mohammad dismissed Nazimuddin who still had a majority in the Parliament and later the entire constituent assembly soon after the 1954 general elections.

Ghulam Mohammad left office in 1955 and Major General Iskandar Mirza, Governor of East Bengal and central minister, now took office as Governor-General. Under Major General Mirza, East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan.  

Pakistan adopted a constitution in 1956—9 years after its independence with a newly elected constituent assembly. In this constitution, both eastern and western wings of the country were equally represented and the federal government had wide powers. Mirza became the president and appointed Suhrawardy as PM. He, however, orchestrated Suhrawardy’s exit and Firoz Khan Noon became the Prime Minister with the support of Awami League.  

Pakistan came under military rule in 1958 for the first time after the abrogation of the Pakistani constitution and Mirza was exiled. This military rule under General Ayub Khan lasted till 1971. General Khan was appointed as the Chief Martial Law Administrator and nominated as the new Prime Minister of Pakistan, charged with administering the country.  

He consolidated the offices of the president and prime minister to become the head of the state and the government. He created a cabinet of technocrats, diplomats and military officers including Air Marshal Asghar Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. It was during Khan’s tenure as the Pakistani premier that the 1965 war with India took place.  

General Yahya Khan, infamous for the 1971 Bangladesh war and the atrocities that unfolded throughout the crisis, ordered elections in December 1970 as the Pakistan president and commander-in-chief of the Pakistani armed forces. These elections were won by Shiekh Mujib-ur-Rahman-led Awami League in east Pakistan and Zulfiqar Ali-Bhutto-led Pakistan People’s Party in west Pakistan.  

After the 1971 war, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was sworn in as the President of Pakistan on December 20. With his presidency, Bhutto got the control of the military. He also got another position as the Chief Martial Law Administrator.  

After this, Bhutto went on to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1973 with 108 votes in a house of 146 members. He is considered as the architect of the Pakistani constitution of 1973 and put Pakistan on the path to parliamentary democracy. On July 5, 1977, the military led by General Zia-ul-Haq staged a military coup. Following this, General Zia relieved Bhutto of power and held him in detention for about a month.  

After consecutive arrests, Bhutto was hanged in 1979 despite international calls for clemency. Bhutto was sentenced to death for the murder of a political opponent, which was widely seen as unfair. General Zia-ul-Haq’s reign as President of Pakistan and Chief Martial Law Administrator lasted till 1988, when he was killed in an aircraft crash.  

It was then that Benazir Bhutto took over as the first woman Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988 and her government lasted till 1990. It is then that Nawaz Sharif, also infamous for the 1999 Kargil war, was elected as the Prime Minister of Pakistan and his tenure lasted till 1993, with Benazir’s re-election to the post in 1990. Nawaz Sharif makes a comeback as the PM for the second time in 1997, only to be overthrown by General Pervez Musharraf in a military coup in 1999.  

Three years into his rule, Musharraf won a referendum and went onto rule Pakistan till 2008. Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani won the elections and led a coalition government which served for around four years. Raja Pervez Ashraf is made the Prime Minister for a while in 2012.  

Nawaz Sharif returns as the Prime Minister of Pakistan for the third time in 2013 and resigned in 2017 after being disqualified by the Pakistani Supreme Court over corruption charges. Post Sharif’s dismissal over corruption, Imran Khan took office as the Prime Minister amid much fanfare in 2018.  

(With inputs from DIU, Britannica)

Also read: Imran Khan loses majority ahead of no-trust vote on Apr 3

Also read: Will not resign, ready to face no-trust vote: Pak PM Imran Khan