1970 Pakistani general election

On 23 March 1956, Pakistan changed from being a Dominion of the British Commonwealth and became an Islamic republic after framing its own constitution. Although the first general elections were scheduled for early 1959, severe political instability led President Iskander Mirza to abrogate the constitution on 7 October 1958. Mirza imposed martial law and handed power to the Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, General Muhammad Ayub Khan. After assuming the presidency, President Ayub Khan promoted himself to the rank of field marshal and appointed General Muhammad Musa Khan as the new commander-in-chief. On 17 February 1960, President Ayub Khan appointed a commission under Muhammad Shahabuddin, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, to report a political framework for the country. The commission submitted its report on 29 April 1961, and, on the basis of this report, a new constitution was framed on 1 March 1962. The new constitution declared the country the Republic of Pakistan and brought about a presidential system of government, replacing the parliamentary system of the 1956 constitution. The electoral system was made indirect, and the "basic democrats" were declared the electoral college for the purpose of electing members of the National and Provincial Assemblies. Under the new system, presidential elections were held on 2 January 1965, which resulted in a victory for Ayub Khan. As years went by, political opposition against President Ayub Khan mounted. In East Pakistan, leader of the Awami League, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was one of the key leaders to rally opposition to President Ayub Khan. In 1966, he began the Six point movement for East Pakistani autonomy. In 1968 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was charged with sedition after the government of President Ayub Khan accused him of conspiring with India against the stability of Pakistan. While a conspiracy between Mujib and India for East Pakistan's secession was not itself conclusively proven, it is known that Mujib and the Awami League had held secret meetings with Indian government officials in 1962 and after the 1965 war. This case led to an uprising in East Pakistan, which consisted of a series of mass demonstrations and sporadic conflicts between the government forces and protesters. The purpose of the LFO was to secure the future constitution, which would be written after the election so that it would include safeguards such as preserving Pakistan's territorial integrity and Islamic ideology. The integrated province of West Pakistan, formed on 22 November 1954, was abolished, and four provinces were retrieved: Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and the North-West Frontier Province. The principles of representation was made on the basis of population, and since East Pakistan had more people than the combined population of the four provinces of West Pakistan, the former got more than half the seats in the National Assembly. Yahya Khan ignored reports that Sheikh Mujib planned to disregard the LFO and that India was increasingly interfering in East Pakistan. Nor did he believe that the Awami League would actually sweep the elections in East Pakistan. A month before the elections, the Bhola cyclone struck East Pakistan. This was the deadliest tropical cyclone in world history, killing an estimated 250,000-500,000 people. The government was severely criticised for its response to the disaster. ==Parties and candidates==

The general elections of 1970 are considered one of the fairest and cleanest elections in the history of Pakistan, with about twenty-four political parties taking part. The Awami League, a Bengali nationalist party, dominated East Pakistan, while in the West the Pakistan Peoples Party, a leftist and nominally democratic socialist party, was a major power. The Pakistani government supported the pro-Islamic parties since they were committed to strong federalism. The Jamaat-e-Islami suspected that the Awami League had secessionist intentions. Election campaign in East Pakistan The continuous public meetings of the Awami League in East Pakistan and the Pakistan Peoples Party in Western Pakistan attracted huge crowds. The Awami League, a Bengali nationalist party, mobilised support in East Pakistan on the basis of its Six-Points Program (SPP), which was the main attraction in the party's manifesto. In East Pakistan, a huge majority of the Bengali nation favoured the Awami League, under Sheikh Mujib. The party received a huge percentage of the popular vote in East Pakistan and emerged as the largest party in the nation as a whole, gaining the exclusive mandate of Pakistan in terms of both seats and votes. The Pakistan Peoples Party failed to win any seats in the east. On the other hand, the Awami League failed to garner any seats in the west. The Awami League's failure to win any seats in the west was used by the leftists led by Zulfikar Bhutto, who argued that Mujib had received "no mandate or support from West Pakistan" (ignoring the fact that he himself did not win any seat in East Pakistan). Bhutto uttered his infamous phrase "idhar hum, udhar tum" (We rule here, you rule there) – thus dividing Pakistan for the first time orally. Some Bengalis sided with the Pakistan Peoples' Party and tacitly or openly supported Bhutto and the democratic socialists, such as Jalaludin Abdur Rahim, an influential Bengali in Pakistan and mentor of Bhutto who was later jailed by Bhutto. Jamat-e-Islami, while supporting allowing the Awami League to form a government, was also against the fragmentation of the country. Conversely, several prominent figures from West Pakistan supported allowing the Awami League to rule, including the poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz and rights activist Malik Ghulam Jilani, father of Asma Jahangir, G. M. Syed the founder of Sindhi nationalist party Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), and Abul Ala Maududi, the leader of Jamat-e-Islami. Elections in West Pakistan However, the political position in West Pakistan was completely different from East Pakistan. In West Pakistan, the population was divided between different ideological forces. The right-wing parties, led by Abul Maududi, raised the religious slogans and initially campaigned on an Islamic platform, further promising to enforce Sharia laws in the country. Meanwhile, the founding party of Pakistan and the national conservative Muslim League, which was divided into three factions (QML, CML, MLC), campaigned on a nationalist platform, promising to initiate the Jinnah reforms as originally envisioned by Jinnah and others in the 1940s. The factions, however, criticised each other for disobeying the rules laid down by the country's founding father. The dynamic leadership and charismatic personality of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was highly active and influential in West Pakistan during these days. Bhutto's ideas and the famous slogan "Roti Kapra Aur Makaan" ("Food, Clothing and Shelter") attracted poor communities, students, and the working class to his party. Under Bhutto's leadership the democratic left gathered and united into one party platform for the first time in Pakistan's history. Bhutto and the left-leaning elements attracted the people of the West to participate and vote for the Peoples Party based on a broad hope for a better future for their children and families. As compared to the right-wing and conservatives in West Pakistan, Bhutto and his allies won most of the popular vote, becoming the pre-eminent players in the politics of the West. Nominations A total of 1,957 candidates filed nomination papers for the 300 National Assembly seats. After scrutiny and withdrawals, 1,579 eventually contested the elections. The Awami League ran 170 candidates, of whom 162 were for constituencies in East Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami had the second-highest number of candidates with 151. The Pakistan Peoples Party ran only 120 candidates, of whom 103 were from constituencies in Punjab and Sindh, and none in East Pakistan. The PML (Convention) ran 124 candidates, the PML (Council) 119, and the PML (Qayyum) 133. All thirteen women's seats were uncontested. ==Results==

{{Pie chart|caption=Vote share of different parties in the election. The government claimed a high level of public participation and a voter turnout of almost 63%. The total number of registered voters in the country was 56,941,500 of which 31,211,220 were from East Pakistan and 25,730,280 were from West Pakistan. Elected members in eastern Pakistan List of members in East Bengal: Elected members in western Pakistan List of members from Punjab, Sindh, North West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Balochistan: ==Aftermath==

The elected Assembly initially did not meet, as President Yahya Khan and the Pakistan Peoples Party did not want the majority party from East Pakistan forming government. This caused great unrest in East Pakistan. The military junta responded by executing Operation Searchlight, which led to the Bangladesh War of Independence, with East Pakistan becoming the independent state of Bangladesh. The Assembly session was eventually held when Yahya resigned four days after Pakistan surrendered to Bangladesh and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took over. Bhutto became the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1973, after the post was recreated by the new constitution. ==References==