Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Times Online:

President Musharraf’s leading opponents urged him to resign yesterday as they jockeyed for position in a new coalition government after winning parliamentary elections that dramatically altered the political landscape of Pakistan.

But the former general, who seized power in a coup in 1999, refused to quit despite unofficial election results showing that the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) had lost all but 38 of its 118 seats in Parliament.

Although official results are not expected until this evening, unofficial figures showed that the two main opposition parties had won at least 154 of the 342 seats in the National Assembly. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won 87 seats on a wave of sympathy for Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister who led the party until she was assassinated on December 27. The runner-up, on 67 seats, was the Pakistan Muslim League (N) party led by Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister who was ousted by Mr Musharraf in 1999.

The key questions now are whether the two parties can form a coalition and agree to work with Mr Musharraf or will try to remove him for imposing emergency rule last year to ensure his re-election. They must also decide whether to continue co-operating with the US and Britain in a campaign against al-Qaeda and Taleban militants near the Afghan border.

Mr Sharif is expected to meet Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Ms Bhutto and successor as PPP leader, in Islamabad, tomorrow.

As his supporters celebrated in Lahore Mr Sharif pledged to work with the PPP, despite a history of animosity between the two parties, and urged Mr Musharraf to accept that he was no longer wanted as leader.

“Today the people have said what they want,” he said.

His demand was echoed by Aitzaz Ahsan, a leading PPP figure who led a lawyers’ protest against Mr Musharraf last year.

“Musharraf has to go . . . He’s the most despised man in the country,” Mr Ahsan told The Times. “He’s not just a lame duck but a dead horse.”

Mr Ahsan, who was the lawyer for Mr Sharif after the 1999 coup, said that Mr Sharif and Mr Zardari could form a coalition with a figure such as Makhdoom Amin Fahim, the PPP vice-chairman, as Prime Minister. He said that they could also agree to re-instate Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the former Chief Justice who has been under house arrest in Islamabad since November.

A two-thirds majority is needed to impeach Mr Musharraf but if Mr Chaudhry is reinstated he is certain to invalidate the re-election of the President.

Mr Zardari stopped short of demanding the resignation of the President or the reinstatement of Mr Chaudhry, hinting at the differences between his party and Mr Sharif’s. He pledged to form a government of national consensus with all democratic forces, apart from the PML (Q), as long as they agreed to a United Nations investigation into the assassination of Ms Bhutto.

“Whoever we make the government with we will take a decision with them to go to the UN for the probe,” he said.

Election observers said that the poll was generally fair despite violence and irregularities at some polling stations.

Joseph Biden, an observer and chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed tripling American aid to Pakistan in the next ten years and increasing accountability for military assistance.

“This is an opportunity to move from a policy that has been focused on a personality to one based on an entire people and a move to a genuine Pakistan policy,” he said.