Ijaz-ul-Haq

Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq (Urdu: محمد اعجاز الحق‎; born 20 May 1953) is a Pakistani politician and leader of the Islamist Pakistan Muslim League (Zia-ul-Haq Shaheed) party. He served as Minister for Religious Affairs and Minorities in the government of General Pervez Musharraf from 2004 to 2007, after having served as Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis in the government of Nawaz Sharif from 1990 to 1993. Ijaz entered politics in 1988, following the assassination of his father General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan's then-military dictator and president. He was elected to parliament in the elections of 1990, 1993, 1997, 2002, and 2013.

Ijaz-ul-Haq was born in Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the eldest son of General Zia-ul-Haq and Shafiqa Zia. He studied business at the University of Punjab, and completed his MBA from Southern Illinois University in the United States. He worked as a banker in Bahrain from 1978 until the death of his father General Zia, the President of Pakistan, in a plane crash on 17 August 1988. Ijaz returned to Pakistan and entered politics, allying himself with Pakistan Muslim League, the party his late father had promoted as president. Ijaz became part of the conservative opposition to Benazir Bhutto, who would be elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in November 1988.

Ijaz was elected in 1990 from Rawalpindi to the National Assembly and was appointed the Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis by new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Zia's protégé. After Sharif's government was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Ijaz was once again elected from Rawalpindi in subsequent general elections of 1993. He once more garnered the highest number of votes from Rawalpindi in 1997, this time by a landslide of 70 percent. Ijaz fell out with Sharif during his second tenure, stepping down as Senior Vice-President of the ruling PML-N. Sharif was overthrown soon afterward in a military coup by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999.

Inquiries into Zia air crash

Ijaz called for several inquiries into the aircrash that killed General Zia on 17 August 1988. He convinced the Sharif government to set up a commission led by Justice Shafi ur Rahman in 1992. It submitted a report of non-performance, accusing the Pakistan Army under General Mirza Aslam Beg of obstructing its work. Ijaz continued managing subsequent inquiries, but besides confirming sabotage, all findings remain inconclusive. Ijaz accused Israeli intelligence agency Mossad several times of providing material to destroy the aircraft, a view corroborated by former US Ambassador to India John Gunther Dean. In September 2009, the Israeli Foreign Office rejected Mossad's role in the Zia crash as baseless. Besides Mossad, Ijaz has accused Aslam Beg, Zia's successor as army chief, of playing an internal role in the crash.

During the elections of 2002, Ijaz was elected to the National Assembly for the fourth time. He contested the election from Bahawalnagar through his newly formed political party Pakistan Muslim League (Zia-ul-Haq Shaheed). His party allied itself with Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League (Q) in 2003. In 2004, he was made Federal Minister for Religious Affairs as well as Federal Minister for Minorities. Ijaz's support for nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan and his criticism of the Bush administration was controversial. His remarks in 2007 concerning the knighthood of Salman Rushdie received international condemnation, including from Benazir Bhutto.

He lost for the first time in the 2008 general election, to Pakistan People's Party's Afzal Sindhu, from Bahawalnagar, in a close contest. He resigned from the PML-Q in February 2010. His revived PML-Zia upset the People's Party in Bahawalnagar for Member of the Provincial Assembly in March 2010. In 2011, he took an active role in Difa-e-Pakistan Council, a coalition of religious parties against the reopening of NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. In 2012, it was speculated that Ijaz would rejoin PML-N, but he successfully ran from PML-Zia again in the 2013 elections, defeating Sindhu. His constituency NA-191 recorded the highest voter turnout in the country for 2013.