Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leading a high-power delegation, represented India at the inauguration of the four-day biennial summit which was opened by Queen Elizabeth II of Britain.

New Delhi's position that Islamabad should be suspended from the CHOGM till return of a democratic set up in Pakistan being ruled by General Pervez Musharraf received support when South African President Thabo Mbeki said in his address that "the democratic project is a matter that must remain at the centre of our focus, as recent negative developments in the member state of Pakistan have shown".

Commonwealth Secretary General Emeka Anyaoku told the summit that the 1991 Harare declaration on promotion of fundamental political values rejected undemocraticregimes.

Describing the grouping as a "club of democracies", Anyaoku, who will be demitting office next year, said the Commonwealth should be without any representation of military rule.

Except Pakistan, which has been suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth following the ouster of Premier Nawaz Sharif by Gen Musharraf in a coup last month, the rest of the 53 member states are attending the summit being held in South Africa for the first time.

Earlier explaining the October 1991 Harare Declaration, Commonwealth Secretary General Emeka Anyaoku said, "before Harare, the Commonwealth had been in the awkward position of professing democracy and democratic principles but too often compelled to live with regimes which were demonstrably undemocratic.

"Thanks to Harare, the Commonwealth has finally resolved that contradiction and we are today in the happy situation where the Commonwealth meets at the summit without any representatives of a military," he said in an obvious reference to Pakistan.