Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (12 August 1924 – 17 August 1988) was a Pakistani general who ruled Pakistan from his coup in 1977 until his death in an airplane crash in 1988. He served as the chief martial law administrator from 1977 to 1985, and as the president of Pakistan from 1978 until his death. Zia was also the chief of the army staff of the Pakistan Army from 1976. He remains Pakistan's longest-serving de-facto ruler to date, and his political ideology is known as Ziaism.

Educated at Delhi University, Zia saw action in World War II as a British Indian Army officer in Burma and Malaya, before opting for Pakistan in 1947 and fighting as a tank commander in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. In 1970, he led a military training mission to Jordan, proving instrumental to defeating the Black September insurgency against King Hussein. Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appointed Zia Chief of Army Staff in 1976. Following civil disorder after the controversial 1977 general election, Zia deposed Bhutto in a military coup and declared martial law on 5 July 1977. Bhutto was controversially tried by the Supreme Court and executed less than two years later, for authorising the murder of a political opponent.

Assuming the presidency in 1978, Zia played a major role in the Soviet-Afghan War. Backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia, Zia coordinated the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet occupation throughout the 1980s. This culminated in the Soviet Union's withdrawal in 1989, but also led to the proliferation of millions of refugees, with heroin and weaponry into Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Zia also bolstered ties with China and the United States, and emphasised Pakistan's role in the Islamic world, while relations with India worsened amid the Siachen conflict and accusations that Pakistan was aiding the Khalistan movement. Domestically, Zia passed broad-ranging legislation as part of Pakistan's Islamization, curbed civil liberties, and heightened press censorship. He also escalated Pakistan's atomic bomb project, and instituted industrialisation and deregulation, helping Pakistan's economy become the fastest-growing in South Asia. Averaged over Zia's rule, GDP growth was the highest in the country's history.