Farooq Leghari

Who was Farooq Leghari?

Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari English IPA: fɑrukʰ æɦmæd ləɡhərɪ̈, was an eighth President of Pakistan, serving from 14 November 1993 until voluntarily resgning on 2 December 1997. He is noted as the first Baloch to have been elected as president.

Educated at the FC College University in Pakistan, and the Oxford University in United Kingdom, he served in the civil bureaucracy and served on political assignments in East-Pakistan in 1960s until 1970. Generally an apolitical and socialist oriented, Leghari party worker of the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1970s and was finally named as the presidential candidate by Benazir Bhutto due to his apolitical vision. He was merely a constitutional and ceremonial figurehead in the Benazir's government; whilst Benazir exercised her authority while running her government. Surprisingly, he dismissed his leader's government after being convinced of Benazir Bhutto and her spouse Asif Ali Zardari's involvement in younger brother's death as well as an economic default was reached at that time.

After dismissing, his political ideology clashed with conservative Prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and his intervention to support to Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah's matter finally led the resignation of his presidency after being forced by the conservatives and persuaded by the Pakistan Armed Forces in 1997. His relations with Benazir Bhutto too deteriorated which led him to provide his support for dissident group opposing both PPP and PML in May 2004. Since then he stayed away from national politics and died from a long heart illness at the Combined Military Hospital in Rawalpindi on 20 October 2010.