Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani was born on 9 June 1952 in the city of Karachi in Pakistan. Soon after living in Karachi few years he moved to Multan where he started to study in the Former Christian Collage University. In addition he also studied from the Government Collage University from where he achieved his bachelor’s degree in Journalism in the early 1970s. Then he obtained his Masters from the Punjab University in the same subject in 1976. Other than politics he is interested in architecture and engineering also.
Yousaf Raza Gillani married Fauzia and have a daughter and four sons. The eldest one is Abdul Qadir Gillani who is also a popular politician. The other three sons Ali Qasim Gillani, Ali Musa Gillani and Ali Haider Gillani are triplets.
Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani started his political career in the year 1978 as a part of the government of Late President General Zia-ul-Haq, a military dictator. Soon he joined The Pakistan Muslim League along with its leader Mian Nawaz Sharif. However he soon left PML-N due to numerous political matters and was again nominated for public service by General Zia-ul-Haq. Soon he also achieved the position of Chairman of the Multan Union Council in 1983.
After joining the Pakistan People’s Party he became a minister of the Ministry of Tourism during the rule of Late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and since then was a member of the parliament in the Multan area. Later on Benazir Bhutto assigned him the post of a speaker in the National Assembly till the early 1997. During this time there were various accusations and allegations regarding his name being involved in different corruption cases for which he was held in custody from early 2001 till October 2006.
In the general elections of 2008 his party nominated him for being the prime minister. He had this post from 25 March 2008 till 19 June 2012 when he was disqualified from the post of being the Prime minister of Pakistan for contempt of court charges. His stay as the Prime Minister was the second longest in the history of Pakistan after Liaquat Ali Khan. Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani was the PM for 1494 days whereas Liaquat Ali Khan was the PM for 1524 days.
This article was last updated on Aug 2013
