ISLAMABAD, May 19: The People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) has formally moved the Commonwealth urging it not to readmit Pakistan "as long as the military continues to control politics, political parties and parliament in the country".

PPP president Makhdoom Amin Fahim on Wednesday sent a letter to Commonwealth Secretary-General Don Mackinnon just two days before a critical nine-member committee meeting of the organization in London to consider lifting Pakistan's suspension.

Earlier, Mr Fahim held a meeting with PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto in Dubai before she left for London. The PPP has informed the Commonwealth that the key goalpost of real democracy, namely a sovereign parliament, had not been achieved in the country.

"Elected houses have been rendered dysfunctional as important motions, resolutions tabled by opposition and questions raised in the Senate aimed at restoring to parliament its rightful place continue to be killed in the chamber by the Senate chairman," it says.

On Monday party's spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar had issued a list of resolutions and motions killed in the chamber by Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro and warned that as doors were blocked the party was considering taking the battle to international bodies.

"The PPP feels that re-admission to the Commonwealth at this stage would amount to conferring democratic credentials on the regime in Pakistan and further push back the goal of genuine democracy in the country," the letter said.

The PPP complained that it believed that the resolutions were killed in the chamber because if they had come up for discussion, the opposition would have exposed how some orders and laws were made capriciously only to advance the vested interests of real power brokers to the exclusion of people who continue to be grounded by the wheel of exploitation.

Mr Babar, when contacted, said the party had been forced to raise the issue at international forum as previously the use of parliamentary instruments to highlight the civil-military imbalance were disallowed, but at present even those resolutions and motions, which sought to restore to the Parliament its rightful place, were also being killed in the chamber.