Zia held non-partisan elections in 1985 and appointed Muhammad Junejo prime minister, though he accumulated more presidential powers through the Eighth Amendment in the Constitution of Pakistan.

After completing his initial education in Simla, Zia attended Delhi's prestigious St. Stephen's College, an Anglican missionary school, for his BA degree in History, from which he graduated with distinction in 1943.

[21] His cousin Mian Abdul Waheed has served as diplomat, being Pakistan's ambassador to Germany and Italy, also playing a major role in the country becoming a nuclear power, while post-retirement he turned to active politics, long been associated with the PML-N before ending up in the PPP.

Brigadier Zia had been recommended to be court-martialled by Major-General Nawazish in his submission to President Yahya Khan for disobeying GHQ orders by commanding a Jordanian armoured division against the Palestinians, as part of actions during Black September in which thousands were killed.

Immediately, the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Mohammad Shariff announced his and the navy's strong support for Zia and his military government.

Zia did not trust the civilian institutions and legislators to ensure the country's integrity and sovereignty[29][page needed] therefore, in October 1977, he announced the postponement of the electoral plan and decided to start an accountability process for the politicians.

Zia dispatched an intelligence unit, known as ISI's Political Wing, sending Brigadier-General Taffazul Hussain Siddiqiui, to Bhutto's native Province, Sindh, to assess whether people would accept martial law.

[29][page needed] A Disqualification Tribunal was formed, and several individuals who had been members of parliament were charged with malpractice and disqualified from participating in politics at any level for the next seven years.

When Bhutto appeared personally to argue his appeal in the supreme court, he almost affirmed his concurrence with the judges present for not letting off a judgement without imposing some conditions on ruling military government.

[58] Zia had recognised the fact that since, Bhutto had good equations with the governments of the Soviet Union, China, and all the important western countries, excluding the United States.

[58] Immediately, chief justice Yaqub Ali was forcefully removed from the office after the latter agreed to re-hear the petition filed at the supreme court by the peoples party's chairwoman Nusrat Bhutto on 20 September 1977.

[58] The Zia regime largely made use of installing high-profile military generals to carte blanche provincial administration under martial law.

[citation needed] By contrast, third martial law administrator appointment of Lieutenant-General Ghulam Jilani Khan to the Punjab Province made much headway in beautifying Lahore extending infrastructure, and muting political opposition.

Senior statesman and technocrats were included physicist-turned diplomat Agha Shahi, jurist Sharifuddin Perzada, corporate leader Nawaz Sharif, economist Mahbub ul Haq, and senior statesman Aftab Kazie, Roedad Khan, and chemist-turned diplomat Ghulam Ishaq Khan were a few of the leading technocratic figures in his military government.

Critics complained that ethnic and sectarian mobilisation filled the void left by banning political parties (or making elections "non-partisan"), to the detriment of national integration.

[67] The General worked to give himself the power to dismiss the Prime Minister dissolve the National Assembly, appoint provincial governors and the chief of the armed forces.

[66] In general Zia gave economic development and policy a fairly low priority (aside from Islamization) and delegating its management to technocrats such as Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Aftab Qazi and Vaseem Jaffrey.

[69] However, between 1977 and 1986, the country experienced an average annual growth in the GNP of 6.8%—the highest in the world at that time—thanks in large part to remittances from the overseas workers, rather than government policy.

[70][71] By the time General Zia had initiated the coup against Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto, the economic cycle process of nationalisation program was completed.

[73][74] American legislators and senior officials most notable were Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Charlie Wilson, Joanne Herring, and the civilian intelligence officers Michael Pillsbury and Gust Avrakotos, and senior US military officials General John William Vessey, and General Herbert M. Wassom, had been long associated with the Zia military regime where they had made frequent trips to Pakistan advising on expanding the idea of establishment in the political circle of Pakistan.

After 1976, Bhutto's aggressive authoritarian personal style and often high-handed way of dealing with political rivals, dissidents, and opponents had also alienated many....[29][page needed]On 25 December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

Following this invasion, Zia chaired a meeting and was asked by several cabinet members to refrain from interfering in the war, owing to the vastly superior military power of the USSR.

[78] During this meeting, the Director-General of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) then-Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for a covert operation in Afghanistan by arming Islamic Extremists.

US politician Charlie Wilson claims that he worked with Zia and the CIA to channel Soviet weapons that Israel captured from the PLO in Lebanon to fighters in Afghanistan.

[84] Major-General Zahid Ali Akbar, an engineering officer, had little role in the atomic project; Zia responded by taking over the program under military control and disbanded the civilian directorate when he ordered the arrest of Hassan.

[88] (sic)...Either General Zia did not know the facts about country's atomic bomb project... Or General Zia was the "most superb and patriotic liar I have ever met...."Following the success of Operation Opera – in which an Israeli Air Force strike took place to destroy the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981 – suspicion grew in Pakistan that the Indian Air Force had similar plans for Pakistan.

In 2004, Abdul Qadeer Khan's dismissal from the nuclear weapons program was considered a face saving exercise by the Pakistan Armed Forces and political establishment under the then Chief of Army Staff and President General Pervez Musharraf.

[124] It was under Zia and the economic prosperity of his era that the country's urban middle and lower-middle-classes expanded and Western 1980s fashion wear and hairstyle spread in popularity, and rock music bands gained momentum, according to leftist cultural critic Nadeem F.

[126] As time passed, the legislature wanted to have more freedom and power and by the beginning of 1988, rumours about the differences between Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo and Zia were rife.

[125] To this day, Zia remains a polarizing figure in Pakistan's history, credited with preventing wider Soviet incursions into the region as well as economic prosperity, but decried for weakening democratic institutions, passing laws encouraging religious intolerance,[148][149] and depreciating the rupee with managed float policies.