(dpa) - Pakistan's opposition parties cruised to victory Tuesday in one of the most crucial elections in the troubled nation's history, ensuring a return to civilian rule and handing a devastating defeat to President Pervez Musharraf and his ruling party.
Unofficial results from 255 of 272 contested National Assembly seats showed assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's Pakistani People's Party (PPP) with 87 seats, followed by fellow opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 66, giving the duo 60 per cent of the vote.
The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) was a distant third with 38 seats, and several of its top leaders also lost their individual races. An alliance of Muslim-based parties that had backed Musharraf was also trounced at the polls, while small regional parties and independent candidates did better than expected.
Analysts said the results were part of a massive backlash against Musharraf, a recently retired army general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 but whose position is now vulnerable given the likely hostile incoming parliament.
"This was an affront upon him, his friends, his allies," said Asad Durrani, a retired army general and analyst. "I can't think of very much that endeared him to people."
Musharraf's popularity has plummeted since he declared emergency rule on November 4, 2007 to prevent the Supreme Court from overturning his controversial re-election the previous month. He sacked dozens of judges, jailed political opponents, gagged the media and suspended the constitution.
He later lifted emergency measures and set elections for early January, but the polls were postponed by five weeks after Bhutto, a two-time former prime minister, was killed in a gun and suicide-bomb attack at a campaign rally on December 27.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan has also been rocked by dozens of suicide bombings from pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda militants operating in the country's lawless tribal areas near Afghanistan, who were also blamed for killing Bhutto.
The PPP appears to have capitalized on voter sympathy and anger with Musharraf's military-backed government. But Sharif's party surprised many and was the runaway leader in his home Punjab province, the most hotly-contested region and where the ruling PML-Q is also based.
Sharif, who was ousted as prime minister by Musharraf, displayed his growing clout Tuesday by calling on the incoming parliament to reverse constitutional changes Musharraf made late last year to cover his power grab and reinstate the sacked Supreme Court and High Court judges.
Once the judiciary is back, Sharif told a press conference at his headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore, "they will have to give a judgment on Mr. Musharraf, on whether he (was) eligible to contest the presidential elections" in October 2007.
Sharif said he would meet in Islamabad on Thursday with Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari, the acting PPP chairman, to discuss the new parliament's agenda and a possible coalition government. He also said smaller, regional parties who supported the opposition and won seats, such as the Awami National Party, would be invited.
The opposition's surprising big win indicated the elections were generally free and fair, as Musharraf had promised, though analysts said there was still some vote-rigging by his government. Feared widespread election violence including suicide bombings also never materialized, although 19 people died in clashes between pro-government and opposition supporters.
Voter turnout was only 45 per cent, DawnNews cited the Election Commission of Pakistan as saying, likely a result of fears of violence and disillusionment among the public that the vote would be rigged.
A US observation team led by three senior US senators, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel and John Kerry, concluded on Tuesday that the polls in general were free and fair.
"It was fair ... and it appears that's exactly how the Pakistan people view it," Biden told a press conference.
PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the results showed the public had enough of Musharraf's moves to change the constitution to remain in power.
"The public has always been demanding change," he said. "Most of the people of Pakistan wanted Musharraf to quit."
Analysts had characterized Monday's polls as crucial for the survival of the embattled president, a key US ally in the region and partner in the Bush administration's global war on terrorism.
However, presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi said Musharraf had no intention of stepping down and was "happy the Pakistani people have participated in the cleanest, neatest, safest elections in the history of Pakistan." The country has a long history of election fraud.
Most senior PML-Q candidates, including the party leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, prime ministerial candidate Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi, and several members of the Musharraf government cabinet all lost in their respective constituencies.
