Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the context of 1971 Pakistan Military Officer's Revolt

The economy of Pakistan is categorized as a developing economy. It ranks as the 26th largest based on GDP using purchasing power parity (PPP) and the 41st largest in terms of nominal GDP. With a population of 255.3 million people as of 2025, Pakistan's position at per capita income ranks 161st by GDP (nominal) and 142nd by GDP (PPP) according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In its early years, Pakistan's economy relied heavily on private industries. The nationalization of a significant portion of the sector, including financial services, manufacturing, and transportation, began in the early 1970s under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. During Zia-ul Haq's regime in the 1980s, an "Islamic" economy was adopted, outlawing economic practices forbidden in Sharīʿah and mandating traditional religious practices. The economy started privatizing again in the 1990s.

The Constitution of Pakistan (Urdu: آئینِ پاکستان, romanized: Ā'īn-e-Pākistān; also known as the 1973 Constitution) is the supreme law of Pakistan. The document guides Pakistan's law, political culture, and system. It sets out the state's outline, the fundamental rights of the population, the state's law and orders, and also the structure and establishment of the institutions and the armed forces. Drafted by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, with additional assistance from the country's opposition parties, it was unanimously approved by the 5th Parliament on 10 April and ratified on 14 August 1973. The first three chapters establish the rules, mandate, and separate powers of the three branches of the government: a bicameral legislature; an executive branch governed by the prime minister as chief executive; and an apex federal judiciary headed by Supreme Court. The Constitution designates the president of Pakistan as a ceremonial Head of State who is to represent the unity of the state. The first six articles of the constitution outline the political system as a federal parliamentary republic system; as well as Islam as its state religion. The Constitution also encapsulates provisions stipulating the legal system's compliance with Islamic injunctions contained in the Quran and Sunnah.

The Parliament cannot make any laws which may be repugnant or contrary to the Constitution; however, the Constitution itself may be amended by a two-thirds majority in both the houses of the bicameral Parliament, unlike the previous legal documents of 1956 and 1962. It has been amended over time, and most recent impulses for political upgrades and reforms has been amended. Although enforced in 1973, Pakistan, however, celebrates the adoption of the constitution on 23 March—when the first set was promulgated in 1956 each and every year as Republic Day.Technically there are 26 amendments but 23 amendments were made in constitution and three were not passed by the parliament as the three amendments collapsed.

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is a Pakistani political party with a centre-left to leftist political position and a democratic socialist ideology. It is one of the three major mainstream political parties alongside the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. It currently holds the most seats in the Senate, and second-most in the National Assembly; alongside leading a majoritarian government in Sindh and a coalition government in Balochistan.

Founded in 1967 in Lahore, when a number of prominent left-wing politicians in the country joined hands against the presidency of Ayub Khan, under the leadership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. It is a member of the Socialist International. The PPP's platform is socialist, liberal-progressive, and its stated priorities continue to include transforming Pakistan into a social-democratic state, promoting egalitarian values, establishing social justice, and maintaining a strong military.

1972 Sindhi Language Bill was introduced by the Chief Minister Mumtaz Bhutto on 3 July 1972, in the Sindh Assembly, Pakistan. The 1972 Language violence in Sindh occurred starting on 7 July 1972, when the Sindh Assembly passed the Sind Teaching, Promotion and Use of Sindhi Language Bill, 1972 which established Sindhi language as the sole official language of the province resulting in language violence in Sindh. Due to the clashes, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto explained that this bill is not against Urdu language. Later an ordinance was also promulgated to clarify it. The original bill as passed by the Sindh Assembly on 7 July 1972 is still in place.

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.

Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician and stateswoman who served as the 11th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990, and again from 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman elected to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country. Ideologically a liberal and a secularist, she chaired or co-chaired the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from the early 1980s until her assassination in 2007.

Of Sindhi, Persian and Kurdish parentage, Bhutto was born in Karachi to the politically-significant aristocratic Bhutto family. She studied at Harvard University and the University of Oxford, where she served as President of the Oxford Union. She returned to Pakistan in 1977 during her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's socialist government, shortly before her father was ousted in a military coup and later executed. Bhutto and her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, took control of the PPP and led the country's Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD). Bhutto was repeatedly imprisoned by Zia-ul-Haq's military government and self-exiled to Great Britain in 1984. She returned in 1986 and — influenced by Thatcherite economics — transformed the PPP's platform from a socialist to a liberal one, before leading it to victory in the 1988 election. As prime minister, her attempts at reform were stifled by conservative and Islamist forces within the country, including President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the Pakistani military. Her administration, having been accused of corruption and nepotism, was dismissed by Khan in 1990 with the following election being rigged by Intelligence services to ensure a victory for the conservative Islamic Democratic Alliance (IJI), at which point Bhutto became the Leader of the Opposition.