ISLAMABAD, Nov 21: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, has urged the Commonwealth to ask Islamabad to permit the safe and early return of the two exiled prime ministers.

Ms Bhutto called on the Commonwealth Secretary General in London on Friday and presented him a memorandum on the political situation in Pakistan urging him to send a team to Pakistan to prepare a report on the harassment of elected parliamentarians and the rigging of the bye-elections.

The memo said Islamabad should be urged to stop forcing the parliamentarians to change their loyalties and to immediately appoint the parliamentary leader of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) as the leader of opposition which was the second largest group after the treasury benches.

As Islamabad seeks indemnity for General Musharraf and his aides for committing treason by suspending the constitution, it should also reciprocate with indemnity for all parliamentarians who took decisions in good faith in the parliament.

The Commonwealth should also raise with Islamabad the need for reaching an agreement with the opposition on electoral reform aimed at ensuring that next elections are fair, free and impartial and open to participation by all political parties and all political leaders, she said.

The former prime minister pointed out that the present parliament was being rendered irrelevant by the Musharraf regime where the president was also the serving chief of the army staff. The parliament has passed only two bills. The treasury members were passively boycotting the parliament indicating their displeasure with key cabinet posts given to defectors from the PPP.

She said the primary function of parliament was to enact laws and to act as a watchdog of government but both these roles were being denied to the parliamentarians, as questions on issues of national importance were ruled out.

She said a simple question: “Whether an inquiry had been held into the Kargil conflict (When India and Pakistan came closer to a full-scale war). And, if yes, when will the report be released” was ruled out of order.

She said the parliamentarians continued facing harassment. “The spouse of parliamentarian, Farzana Raja, was arrested and treated in the shabbiest manner to break his spirit and that of his wife.”

It is important for the Commonwealth to send a team to visit the constituencies to comprehend the massive persecution taking place, she said. This is the state-sponsored terrorism and it must stop if the democratic principle of fundamental human rights is to be respected, she added.

“One can only imagine the horrors that will be unleashed if the regime succeeds in returning to the Commonwealth without improving its human rights record or enacting laws of electoral reform to prevent the massive rigging that took place in the last general elections,” the memo said.

It is important for the Commonwealth to take a firm stand and send a message to dictators in the wings that it will not watch the death of democracy silently, Ms Bhutto said. The Commonwealth has rightly called for Pakistan to introduce democracy before its readmission to the august body, she added.