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Should Pakistan return to the Commonwealth?
Foreign Secretary David Miliband says Pakistan has made democratic progress and should be re-admitted to the Commonwealth.
He has pointed to the extension of press freedoms and the re-establishment of constitutional rules. New Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), whose leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, was sworn in last month.
He has promised to cut back on ministers’ perks and re-establish student and trade unions.
Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in November 2007 because of President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule. It had previously been suspended in 1999 as well, after Musharraf seized power in a coup.
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