...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...arguably emerges as Pakistain's most influential leader ever, whose legacies still haunt Pakistain decades later.
Time and health did not allow Mohammad Ali Jinnah to bequeath a definitive legacy which could clarify his vision for Pakistain given his contrasting speeches about state and religion. Ayub Khan's legacy of a centralised polity and lopsided elitist development was quickly dismantled by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto