Pakistani General Election of 1970

The Awami League won an outright majority by sweeping East Pakistan, but the refusal to transfer power led to the birth of Bangladesh.

Overview

Held on December 7, 1970, Pakistan's first general election under universal adult suffrage was organized by the military government of Yahya Khan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League, campaigning for autonomy on its Six Points program, won 160 of the 162 seats allotted to East Pakistan, an absolute majority of the National Assembly, while Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party won 81 seats and dominated the West. Bhutto and the generals refused to let the assembly meet on Mujib's terms, and the army's crackdown in March 1971 led to the Bangladesh Liberation War and the independence of Bangladesh that December.