Benazir Bhutto

Acting

1953-06-21 · Karachi, Sind, Dominion of Pakistan

Benazir Bhutto (June 21, 1953 – December 27, 2007) was a Pakistani liberal politician and stateswoman of mixed Sindhi, Persian, and Kurdish parentage, who served as 11th and 13th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim majority nation. She co-chaired the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from the early 1980s until her assassination in 2007. Throughout her career, she remained a controversial figure for her secularist ideology, nepotism and political inexperience, marriage to an infamous corrupt politician, and accusations of being corrupt herself, but this never faltered her public image. Posthumously, she came to be seen as a champion of democracy and is regarded as an icon for women's rights due to her political success in a male-dominated society.