Ghulam Ishaq Khan

Who was Ghulam Ishaq Khan?

Ghulam Ishaq Khan, sometimes abbreviated to GIK, was the 7th President of Pakistan from 1988 until his resignation in 1993, the only president to have come from the civil bureaucracy.

Born in Bannu District, Frontier Province of the British Indian Empire, Ghulam Ishaq was educated at Islamia College and graduated from the Peshawar University, before embarking his statesmanship as a junior bureaucrat in the Pakistan Government. Securing the appointment as the first chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority by President Ayub Khan in 1961, Ghulam Ishaq would also tenured as the Finance Secretary from 1966 to 1970. A year later, he was elevated as the Governor of the State Bank by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, before being made Defence Secretary in 1975, assisting with Pakistan's clandestine atomic bomb project. He was retained by President Zia-ul-Haq as Finance Minister in 1977, overseeing high rates of economic growth and social changes. Having been elected chairman of the Senate in 1985, Ghulam Ishaq was elevated to the presidency after Zia's death in an air crash on 17 August 1988.

As president, Ghulam Ishaq escalated his role in neighbouring Afghanistan, he subsequently witnessed the end of the Soviet occupation, but his personal relations with the Soviet Union and the United States deteriorated. Domestically, Ghulam Ishaq's term faced challenging problems; ethnic riots flared in Karachi, currency crises weakened the national economy, and the power struggle with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who came to power after being elected in 1988. After Benazir Bhutto accused him of frustrating her government as part of an alliance with conservative opposition leader Nawaz Sharif; Ghulam Ishaq invoked the Eight Amendment and dismissed Benazir's government after just 20 months, on charges of corruption and misgovernance. But when Sharif was elected Prime Minister in 1990, the tussle between presidency and premiership grew worse. Ghulam Ishaq attempted to dismiss his government on similar charges but Sharif resisted, appealing to the Supreme Court and having the president's decision overturned.