History of Pakistan Muslim League from 1947 to 2024

In-fighting within the ruling Muslim League began almost immediately after Jinnah’s demise in 1948. The in-fighting turned bit

Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy.

APAML was the first ML faction. It was formed in 1949 by a leading ML leader from Bengal (East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy. Suhrawardy had argued with ML leadership that the party needed to retain the populist tenor of AIML. He accused the leadership of ‘elitism’ and ‘losing contact with the masses.’ He broke away in 1949 to form AP
Iftikhar Mamdot with Mr Jinnah and Ms Fatima Jinnah.

Iftikhar Mamdot was the first chief minister of Punjab in Pakistan and headed the ML in that province. A close confidant of Mr Jinnah, Mamdot was known to be a stern and outspoken disciplinarian.

After Jinnah’s demise, Mamdot was ousted as Punjab CM for ‘disobeying party directives and PM’s instructions’. Mamdot quit the ML and formed his own faction, the Jinnah Muslim League in 1949.

Jinnah Awami Muslim League emerged in 1950 with the merger of Suhrawardy's APAML and Mamdot’s JML

Mian Iftikharuddin with wife and son.

AIML had a vocal left-wing and Mian Iftikhar was a leading member of that wing. After Pakistan’s creation and Jinnah’s demise, this wing lost much of its influence in ML.

In 1949, Mian Iftikhar quit ML and formed a left-wing party, the Azad Pakistan Party. He took with him a number of socialists that had been part of the AIML. AIML merged with some other left-wing parties to form the National Awami Party in 19



Veteran AIML and ML leader, Muhammad Ayub Khuhro.

Ayub Khuhro was the first CM of Sindh in Pakistan. He also headed ML in that province. In 1952, severe in-fighting between Khuhro and some other ML leaders in Sindh saw the central ML leadership asking Khuhro to step down. Khuhro quit and formed the Sindh Muslim League. SML folded in 1954.

In 1954, the first direct provincial elections were held in the Bengali-majority East Pakistan. The Jinnah Awami League formed an alliance with the left-wing Democratic Party; the left-wing Peoples Committee Party; and the right-wing Nizam-i-Islam Party. The alliance was named United Front..

The Muslim League was routed and with this rout it also began to lose its majority in the centre. Jinnah Awami League’s victory would go on to give Suhrawardy enough clout to become Pakistan’s Prime Minister in 1956

Veteran Muslim League leader and Pakistan’s fourth Governor General and then President, Iskander Mirza, with his wife.

In 1955, veteran ML man Iskander Mirza helped shape a secular centre-right party, the Republican Party. The party, which had the backing of the state and the ‘military-establishment,’ was immediately joined by a number of ML members and leaders in the parliament.

Due to the emergence of the Republican Party, ML’s strength in the parliament was greatly weakened, especially after Mirza became President in 1956. He was at odds with PM Suharwardy of the Jinnah Awami League. Compared to Jinnah Awami League’s populist and left-leaning disposition, the Republican Party was conservative, but equally secular. It folded in 1958

Suharwardy with Shiekh Mujeeb.

After tasting victory in the 1954 East Pakistan election, the Jinnah Awami League increasingly became a Bengali nationalist outfit. In 1956, it shortened its name to Awami League. It became Bangladesh’s founding party in 1971

In 1958, Mirza and then army chief Ayub Khan imposed the country’s first martial law. Months later, Ayub removed Mirza and became President. Political parties were outlawed, including ML and all its factions. ML by then had already been reduced to becoming a small and exhausted entity.

When the Ayub regime lifted the ban on political parties in 1962, all ML factions were in disarray. Looking to be associated with a political party as President, Ayub decided to revive the Muslim League.


Ayub became President of Pakistan in 1959. In 1962, he wanted to author a new constitution and form his own party. He called for a convention of some leading Muslim League and Republican Party members. The convention announced the formation of a new Muslim League. The word Pakistan was added and the party became Pakistan Muslim League (PML). However, it became PML-Convention when some other ML leaders refused to join it and formed their own faction.

PML-Convention’s manifesto echoed the political and economic tenor of the Ayub regime: Rapid industrialisation, free-market-enterprise and ‘Muslim Modernism’ with emphasis on science and technology. The PML-Convention became the majority party in a parliament elected through Ayub’s complex ‘basic democracy’ system.

Ayub was chosen as the party’s chief and a young Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became its first Secretary General.
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