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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Although Yahya Khan established a semimilitary state,
he also
introduced changes that led to the return of parliamentary
democracy. These changes ultimately resulted in the
division of
the country in two. Yahya held national elections in
December
1970 for the purpose of choosing members of the new
National
Assembly who were to be elected directly by the people.
However,
the results of these elections, which brought the
politicians
once more to the fore, led to the secession of East
Pakistan and
the creation of an independent Bangladesh in 1971.
Yahya accepted the demand of East Pakistan for
representation
in the new assembly on the basis of population. As a
result,
Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur ("Mujib") Rahman's Awami
League won
all but two of the 162 seats allotted East Pakistan out of
the
300 directly elected seats in the assembly (thirteen
indirectly
elected women were added), and Mujib wanted considerable
regional
autonomy for East Pakistan. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his
Pakistan
People's Party (PPP) emerged as the political victors in
West
Pakistan in the 1970 elections. Bhutto's intransigence--he
refused to participate in the discussions to frame the new
constitution--led to the continuation of martial law and
the
eventual political and military confrontation between East
Pakistan and West Pakistan, which precipitated civil war
and the
country's dismemberment in December 1971. With Pakistan's
military in disarray, Yahya resigned, and Bhutto was
appointed
president and civilian chief martial law administrator of
a
truncated Pakistan.
Data as of April 1994
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