Military coups in Pakistan in the context of "1958 Pakistani coup d'état"

The 1998 Census of Pakistan was the fifth Pakistani national census. It provided a detailed enumeration of the population of Pakistan at the time it was conducted under the authority of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, an agency of the Government of Pakistan. According to the 1998 census, the population of Pakistan proper (excluding disputed territories) stood at 130,857,717 people. With the inclusion of the population of Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, the population stood at 134,714,017 people. Despite being mandated by the Constitution of Pakistan to be held every 10 years, this was the first census to take place in Pakistan after the 1981 census that took place 17 years earlier, and the next census would not be held for another 19 years, until 2017. The inconsistencies in Pakistan's national elections are due in part to political turmoil and instability within the country.

Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan NPk HJ HPk MBE LoM (14 May 1907 – 19 April 1974) was a Pakistani army officer and military dictator who served as the second president of Pakistan from 1958 until his resignation in 1969. He was the first native commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Army, serving from 1951 to 1958. Ayub Khan's presidency started in 1958 when he overthrew President Iskander Mirza in a coup d'état, and ended in 1969 when he resigned amid mass protests and strikes across the country.

Born in the North-West Frontier Province, Ayub Khan was educated from the Aligarh Muslim University and trained at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He fought in the Second World War on the British side against the Imperial Japanese Army. After the Partition of British India in August 1947, he joined the Pakistan Army and was posted in East Bengal. In 1951, he became the first native commander-in-chief, succeeding General Gracey. From 1953 to 1958, he served in the civilian government as Defence and Home Minister and supported President Iskandar Ali Mirza's decision to impose martial law against prime minister Feroz Khan Noon's administration on 7 October 1958. Three weeks later, Ayub Khan seized the presidency in a military coup, the first in the country's history.

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (12 August 1924 – 17 August 1988) was a Pakistani military officer and politician who served as the sixth president of Pakistan from 1978 until his death in an airplane crash in 1988. He also served as the second chief of the army staff of the Pakistan Army from 1976 until his death. The country's longest-serving de facto head of state and chief of the army staff, Zia's political ideology is known as Ziaism.

Born in Jalandhar, Punjab, Zia was trained at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun and fought in the Second World War under the British Indian Army. Following the partition of India in 1947, he joined the Pakistan Army as a part of the Frontier Force Regiment. Zia was on active duty in Kashmir during the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, and after it he was promoted to colonel. During Black September, he played a prominent role as an advisor of the Jordanian Armed Forces against the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 1976, Zia was elevated to the rank of general and was appointed as chief of the army staff by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, succeeding Tikka Khan. In July 1977, Zia organized Operation Fair Play, in which he overthrew Bhutto's federal government, declared martial law and assumed the office of the chief martial law administrator, dissolved the federal and provincial legislatures — hence suspending the provincial governments as well and declaring governor's rule across all provinces — and suspended the constitution. The coup was the second in Pakistan's history.