ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto has stressed the need for unity among all political parties to bring the armed forces under the control of parliament.

“The PPP has signed a Charter of Democracy calling upon political parties to make the members of the armed forces answerable to parliament, as they are in Washington, London and France, for greater transparency and accountability,” Ms Bhutto said in an interview to the Inter-Press Services the text of which was released by the party’s media office here on Wednesday.

When asked about her party’s strategy for controlling army, she said their first step was to separate the offices of army chief and the president.

She said Gen Musharraf had given an undertaking to the Supreme Court that he would retire as army chief after the presidential elections.

She said that under the present military-doctored Constitution, the armed forces came under the president.

Replying to a question regarding the appointment of Vice Chief of the Army Staff Lt-Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, she said he had the reputation of a professional officer and that was what the armed forces and Pakistan needed.

When asked what amendments would she like in the Constitution, she said it was important to do away with the powers of the president to dismiss an elected parliament in his discretion in order to prevent a return to the ‘dysfunctional democracy’ of the 90s.

Secondly, she said, there were issues like lifting the military-imposed ban on a twice elected prime minister contesting election for a third time for the office and provision regarding appointment of governors, members of the judiciary and Election Commission of Pakistan.

Ms Bhutto said negotiations with the regime were continuing and remaining issues would be resolved in a phased manner.

Some steps have already been taken, like arrangements for shedding military uniform, the counting of ballots, stopping horse-trading by preventing arrest of parliamentarians without permission of an ethics committee, ending political victimisation and promoting national reconciliation.

“I hope other issues like eligibility of prime ministerial candidates and balance of power between parliament and presidency will also be resolved in due course,” she said.

Ms Bhutto made it clear that the PPP negotiated not for sharing power but for restoring democracy through fair, free and impartial elections.

She said she was not striking any deal with the army, but looking at transition to democracy in which parliament was sovereign and the military performed its constitutionally ordained duties.

Ms Bhutto said that after coming into power her priorities would be seeking reconciliation and peace, ending militancy, eradicating poverty, building institutions of civil rule and democracy, spreading education and providing hope to the people of Pakistan for a better future.

About the situation in tribal areas, she said the military government had relied solely on the use of force in dealing with extremism in the tribal areas. “We believe that alongside the use of force, we also need to take political steps and improve the socio-economic conditions of the people in the tribal area as poverty and social isolation also breeds militancy,” she said.