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Referendum in the Streets. Ayub had tried to stave off the final denouement by compromising with the opposition. In recent weeks he had canceled the emergency regulations, amounting to military rule, that had been in force since the 1965 war with India. He had released hundreds of political prisoners, and offered to sit down and negotiate reforms with his opponents. That was an invitation that his enemies refused. When Ayub met with leaders of his ruling Pakistan Moslem League to discuss ways out of the dilemma, one aide suggested a referendum on the country's problems. The President, his face grey and hag gard, replied: "What is happening in the streets in the whole country is already a referendum."
The army, which had always been Ayub's primary base of support, may have begun to waver: there were suggestions that Ayub sensed a growing skepticism among its officers. He also realized that he had underestimated his opposition; he knew that former Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, once a loyal ally but now a determined enemy just released from jail, meant business when he declared: "This campaign is not a movement—it is a real, full-fledged revolution." Short of ceaseless bloodletting, there finally seemed to Ayub no alternative but surrender.
Befriending China. Mohammed Ayub Khan came to power in 1958 after a lengthy period of political upheaval and instability. The ramrod-straight, tall (6 ft. 2 in.) Sandhurst-trained commander in chief of the army had a soldierly disdain for politics that initially moved him to resist a military takeover. Once in control, however, he proved to be a natural politician who understood power and knew how to use it. He quickly set to cleaning the political house, pushing land reform, education and an end to corruption. From the beginning, he operated with a mixture of autocracy and measured democracy. In 1962, he pushed through a new constitution that provided for election of the President by 80,000 (later raised to 120,000) so-called basic democrats—men who could theoretically make their own choice but who were essentially under his control. The government "guided" the press and, while Ayub permitted a national assembly, it had only limited powers.
Initially, there were few complaints about Ayub's attempts to create much-needed stability. Displaying a surprising grasp of economics, Ayub modernized agriculture through subsidized fertilizer sales to farmers and through irrigation development, spurred industrial growth with liberal tax benefits. In the decade of his rule, gross national product rose by 45% and manufactured goods began to overtake such traditional exports as jute and cotton.*He shunned prestige projects and stressed birth control in a country that has the fifth largest population in the world: 125 million. He dismissed criticism with the comment that if there was no family planning, the time would surely come when "Pakistanis eat Pakistanis." In foreign affairs, he retained his ties to the West but also maneuvered toward a more neutral position by befriending China and moving closer to the Soviet Union. His main foreign policy executor then was Bhutto, who was militantly nationalist, often strongly anti-Western and afflicted with a near fanatic hatred of India.