The daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and an opponent of the existing regime, she became joint leader in exile of the Pakistan People’s Party (1984), returning to Pakistan in 1986 to campaign for open democratic elections. Following President Zia ul-Haq’s death she became the first woman Prime Minister of a Muslim country. She took her country back into the Commonwealth and promised radical social reform, but failed to win widespread support from other parties. She was dismissed as Prime Minister and defeated in the ensuing election, re-elected as head of a coalition government in 1993, and dismissed again in 1996. In 1997 she was defeated in the elections. Tried in absentia for corruption, she was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in 1999; a retrial was ordered in 2001, but Bhutto failed to attend and was sentenced (2002) to three years’ imprisonment. She was granted an amnesty and returned to Pakistan to fight elections called for January 2008, but was assassinated in a suicide bombing in Rawalipindi whilst campaigning in December 2007.