Musharraf No 1, hawks very close No 2

While the strong showing by the religious parties is being seen by some as a headache for the General, there were others who pointed out that he could turn the situation to his advantage, that this result would allow him to extract more concessions from the West as the only bulwark against Islamic extremism.

‘‘My information… is that they are giving the Frontier to the MMA,’’ Benazir Bhutto said from London. ‘‘They are doing this so they can tell the US, ‘You need a tinpot dictator strutting on the stage, otherwise the Taliban will take over’.’’ Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won 48 seats, while Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (N) won 13 seats.

But Bhutto also expressed a conciliatory note, saying she was willing to work with Musharraf in forming a new government. She told the BBC, ‘‘To work with a military dictator who trampled the constitution is very difficult for me. However, I would like to add a caveat that if there is a law I would like to ask my party to work within that law and would like to ask Musharraf to respect that law. Our relationship with the general would depend very much on the mutual respecting of the system that has been put in place.’’

Widespread voter apathy and the fact that Bhutto and Sharif were both excluded from the polls also appeared to have played into the MMA’s hands. ‘‘This is extremely significant and ominous,’’ Najam Sethi, editor of the Lahore-based Friday Times weekly, said. ‘‘They are a very serious force to be reckoned with.’’

With the MMA parties controlling the levers of power in those provinces ‘‘the task of hunting down the rebellious Taliban and hostile al Qaeda will become almost impossible,’’ said Sethi, adding they might also start enforcing sharia law practices.

‘‘It is a revolution,’’ MMA Vice-President Qazi Hussain Ahmed told supporters on the outskirts of Peshawar today. ‘‘We will not accept US bases and Western culture.’’ But Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, added that they would aim to avoid confrontation with the military. ‘‘We will adopt a prudent policy. We will work in consultation with all internal forces,’’ he told Reuters. ‘‘No one is a fool to put himself or his nation into trouble.’’

Bhutto and Sharif, both of whom were excluded from the polls, accused the government of rigging the vote count. Early results gave Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party 40 seats and Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League faction PML(N) 13 seats.

‘‘I have no doubt in my mind the worst kind of rigging is going on,’’ Sharif told Reuters by telephone from Medina in Saudi Arabia, saying that pro-government candidates who had admitted defeat on Thursday night were suddenly being declared winners.

‘‘These figures are totally contrary to exit polls,’’ Bhutto said, claiming her information showed the PPP would have won a narrow majority if the vote count had been fair. ‘‘It has been a highly controversial election and we believe there has been widespread rigging.’’(Reuters)