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Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to be democratically elected as a head of state for a majority Muslim country. She was liberal-minded and favored separation of religion and politics, which, along with being a woman, led to her later assassination.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: December 2, 1988--
Born into an aristocratic family, she studied at both Oxford and Harvard. Her father had served as Pakistan’s prime minister from 1973 to 1977 on a socialist platform. He left office via coup and assassination.
Benazir joined her father’s party and moved it from the political left closer to the center, and on December 2, 1988, Bhutto became prime minister of Pakistan. Her attempts at reform were frequently blocked by more conservative members of government and the military. Her tenure lasted less than two years because the 1990 election was rigged for the conservative opposition to win. She became leader of the opposition and then was elected PM again in 1993 and stayed in the position over three years.
Bhutto made efforts to modernize the country, including on the matter of women’s rights, but was plagued by things like a coup attempt in 1995 and a bribery scandal that had the president—the country has both a prime minister and a president—dismiss her government the following year. In 1998 she went into self-exile in Dubai and didn’t return until 2007 to once again run for the leadership of her country. But the fundamentalist fuckwits who don’t think women should have any say in society weren’t having it.
On December 27, 2007, Bhutto was leaving a political rally in the city of Rawalpindi. She was traveling in a bulletproof vehicle but used the sunroof to stand half out of the car and wave at the crowd. That’s when a young Taliban terrorist shot her three times from less than 10 feet away, followed by detonating an explosive vest loaded with ball bearings. Twenty-two people died in the attack, including Bhutto. Al-Qaeda took responsibility, gloating in terminating “the most precious American asset.”
Riots followed the assassination, leading to another 50 deaths.
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