It was created in 1986 as the sole Pakistan Muslim League when Muhammad Khan Junejo was the Prime Minister of Pakistan under President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. In September 1988, the party formed an alliance called Islami Jamhoori Ittehad with Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi's National Peoples Party, and Qazi Hussain Ahmed's Jamaat-e-Islami against Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party for the 1988 general elections. During that time Nawaz Sharif became the most prominent politician outside PPP, and eventually became the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1990.