ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Bhutto has said that the choice between parliamentary and presidential forms of democracy `will best be left to the electorate`. The Prime Minister told [the `Teheran Journal`] ... that this issue would not be raised by the People`s Party in the coming elections. Mr Bhutto was asked ... if he thought there was a chance of moving towards a different type of democratic system. Mr Bhutto said that he believed that some people might raise the question whether we should or should not have a presidential form of government.

However, [he] said that this question `would not be raised by my Party` Pointing out that former President Ayub Khan`s was not a genuine presidential system, Mr Bhutto said that when the People`s Party went to the electorate `we had no alternative but to go for the parliamentary system because there was so much antipathy to Ayub Khan`s presidential form of government, that all parties in the last elections had said in their manifesto that they would go bacl( to the parliamentary system` `Secondly,` Mr Bhutto added, `East Pakistan was part of Pakistan and in a parliamentary system it was easier to divide power between the two Wings.