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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
The Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) was formed in
September
1988 to oppose the Pakistan's People Party (PPP) in
elections
that year. The alliance comprised nine parties, of which
the
major components were the PML and the Islamic Organization
(Jamaat-i-Islami--JI). The IJI won only fifty-three seats
in the
National Assembly, compared with ninety-two won by the
PPP. Most
IJI seats were won in Punjab. Nawaz Sharif emerged from
the 1988
elections as the most powerful politician outside the PPP.
In
December 1988, he succeeded in forming an IJI
administration in
Punjab and became the province's chief minister. It was
from this
power base that he waged the political battles that
eventually
led to his becoming prime minister in 1990. In the
supercharged
atmosphere of the 1990 elections, the electorate surprised
observers. Neither the IJI nor the PPP was expected to
come up
with a firm mandate to rule. Yet the IJI received a strong
mandate to govern, winning 105 seats versus forty-five
seats for
the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDA)--of which the PPP
was the
main component in the National Assembly.
In the 1993 national elections, the IJI coalition no
longer
existed to bring together all the anti-PPP forces. The
religious
parties expended most of their energies trying to form a
workable
electoral alliance rather than bolstering the candidacy of
Nawaz
Sharif, the only person capable of challenging Benazir.
Data as of April 1994
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