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Pakistan's ruling party concedes election defeat

Pakistan's ruling party conceded defeat yesterday after opposition parties routed allies of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections, winning enough seats to form a new government that could threaten the eight-year rule of the close ally of the US in its "war on terror."

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q Party, said: "We accept the results with an open heart [and] will sit on opposition benches [in the new parliament]."

Final results were not expected before yesterday evening, but the election's outcome casts doubt on the political survival of Musharraf, whose popularity plummeted following his decisions late last year to impose emergency rule, purge the judiciary, jail political opponents and curtail the freedom of the press.

The private Geo TV network said the party of late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and another group led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had so far won 149 seats, more than half of the 272 seats in the National Assembly.

The pro-Musharraf party stood a distant third with 36 seats. A ream of party stalwarts and former cabinet ministers lost in their constituencies.

"All the king's men, gone!" proclaimed a banner headline in the Daily Times. "Heavyweights knocked out," read the Dawn newspaper.

Musharraf has promised to work with whatever government emerges from the election. But the former general is hugely unpopular among the public and opposition parties that have been catapulted into power are likely to find little reason to work with him -- particularly since he no longer controls the powerful army.

Sharif has been especially outspoken in demanding that Musharraf be removed and that the Supreme Court justices whom the president sacked late last year be returned to their posts. The judges were dismissed as they prepared to rule on whether Musharraf's re-election in October was constitutional.

With the support of smaller groups and independent candidates, the opposition could gain the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach Musharraf, who angered many Pakistanis by allying the country with Washington in 2001 to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

If the opposition falls short of enough votes to remove Musharraf, the new government could reinstate the Supreme Court justices and ask them to declare the October election invalid.

A spokesman for Sharif's party, Sadiq ul-Farooq, said yesterday that Musharraf "should go."

"We want to put Pakistan back on the track of democracy, Constitution and rule of law, and the restoration of sacked judges is a must to achieve this goal," he said.

Musharraf at best faces the prospect of remaining with sharply diminished powers and facing a hostile public. Last year he stepped down as army chief and his successor has pledged to remove the military from politics.
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