NOWSHERA, Jan 29: The Pakistan People’s Party deputy secretary-general Raza Rabbani has alleged that the present government was bringing too many changes to the constitution to keep Benazir Bhutto out of the forthcoming elections.

Speaking to a group of newsmen at Mian Yahya Shah Kakakhel’s residence, who had joined the PPP a week ago, Rabbani said Gen Ayub and Gen Ziaul Haq, had tried to introduce limited and truncated democracy and plunged the country into political crises. And now, Gen Musharraf was repeating history, he added.

He alleged that the government was trying to block democratic forces from coming into power. Notorious people, who had been involved in financial scandals, are being encouraged for the purpose, he added.

Rabbani underlined the need for an interim government which should hold free, fair and impartial elections. “We are convinced that the present government will not hold free-and-fair elections in the country,” he added.

Some of the so-called politicians, Rabbani said, who had been convicted by the accountability courts, were being freed to act as government’s puppets in the future political set-up.

The PPP central executive committee would decide when the PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto should return to Pakistan.

He reiterated his party’s stand on peaceful solution of the Kashmir problem. “The PPP supports convening of the Loya Jirga by the interim Afghan government to decide about the fate of the Afghan people,” he added.