ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN Official name: Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Islami Jamhuriya-e-Pakistan) Location: South Asia International organisations: The Commonwealth of Nations, The Non-Aligned Movement, The Organisation of Islamic Conference, The United Nations, The World Trade Organisation Borders: Afghanistan, China, India, Iran Coastline: Arabian Sea Land area: 803,940 Km2 Population: 147,600,000 Ethnicity: North Indian (Indo-Aryan) people: Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtun (Pathan), Baloch, Muhajir

Languages: Urdu (closely related to Hindi though written in a different script) is the official language, though only 8% speak it as their first language. In practice English is the language of government. The most widely spoken languages are Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Siraiki 10% and Pashtu 8%.
Religion: Sunni Islam (the state religion) 77%, Shi'a Islam 20%, Christian, Hindu and other 3%
Form of government: In theory, a parliamentary democratic republic (but see below). Pakistan is divided into four provinces and two territories which all have elected assemblies. The Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir (Free Kashmir and the Northern Areas) are under direct government administration.

Capital: Islamabad Constitution: The current Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan dates from 10 April 1973. It was suspended during periods of military rule, 1977-85 and 1999-2002. Head of state: The President, according to the Constitution, is elected by the National Assembly for a five-year term. The current President, however, came to power in a military coup (see below). Head of government: Prime Minister, appointed by the President and in practice accountable to him. Legislature: The Majlis-i-Shura (Parliament) is a bicameral legislature. The lower house, the National Assembly, has 342 members elected for five-year terms. Of these, 272 members are elected in single-member constituencies.

Sixty seats are reserved for women and ten seats are reserved for ethnic minorities. These members are nominated by the political parties. The Senate has 100 members, nominated by the provincial parliaments.
Electoral authority: The Pakistan Electoral Commission ran the 2002 national election.
Freedom House rating: Political Rights 6, Civil Liberties 5
(Pakistan held reasonably free election in 2002 and its political rights rating would now be higher than indicated.)

Political history

Pakistan occupies the western quarter of the Indian subcontinent and until 1947 its history was that of part of India. In 1906 Indian Moslem leaders, fearing that the Indian National Congress's agitation for independence would lead to a Hindu-dominated India, formed the Moslem League, and under the leadership of Mohammned Ali Jinnah they demanded a separate Moslem state, to be called Pakistan ("Land of the Pure").

Mohammned Ali Jinnah

Faced with the threat of civil war the departing British acceded to partition, and Pakistan came into existence in 1947. It originally included East Bengal, but this territory broke away and became Bangladesh in 1971. Pakistan has suffered from chronic bad government and instability thoughout its history. A parliamentary system was created in 1947, but proved weak and ineffective. There were military coups in 1958, 1977 and 1999, and in most cases the civilian governments which alternated with military rule were corrupt or incompetent or both. The 1999 coup was widely welcomed and parliamentary government seemed discredited.

General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in October 1999, has redesigned the political system. In April 2002 a carefully managed plebiscite approved changes to the Constitution greatly expanding the President's powers and confirming Pervez as President until 2007. The Prime Minister and ministry will now be largely responsible to the President, who will retain control over the military, security and foreign policy.

The October 2002 legislative elections were reasonable fairly conducted in a technical sense, but opposition parties had little access to the media. The two most successful parties were those long established in Pakistani politics: the Pakistan Peoples Party, an allegedly socialist party led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Moslem League (Quaid-e-Azam), a faction of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party which supports Pervez (Quaid-e-Azam means Great Leader and is a reference to Jinnah). Nawaz's own faction, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), polled poorly. Both Bhutto and Nawaz are in exile because of corruption charges.

The surprise of the election was the success of the Islamist Muttahhida Majlis-e-Amal Pakistan, an alliance of Islamist parties some of which have links to the Taliban and other Islamic extrenists. Apart from the Islamists, Pakistani political parties have little in the way of ideology and are mostly vehicles for their leaders and the interests they represent.