ISLAMABAD, 12 October — Pakistan was headed for a hung Parliament yesterday with no single party able to win a clear majority in poll branded fraudulent by opposition parties, as the country witnessed massive gains by an alliance of religious parties opposed to the US.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-QA), said to be a pro-government party, maintained the overall lead, while the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was in second place. PML-QA was dubbed the ‘King’s party’ because of its closeness to President Pervez Musharraf. The PML-QA was heavily endorsed by Gen. Musharraf but has failed to win the slim majority that analysts predicted. Now there is no guarantee of a compliant prime minister to oversee a five-year transition to democracy.

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a grouping of religious parties clinched most seats in the North West Frontier Province whose Pashtun residents share the Taleban’s ethnicity and resent Pakistan’s support of the US-led campaign to crush the Taleban.

Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun party, the Awami National Party (ANP), the traditional vote-winner in the country’s conservative northwest, conceded defeat yesterday and its leaders resigned en masse after being routed by the MMA.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party and vice president of the MMA said the groups would aim to avoid confrontation with the country’s powerful military establishment.

“We will adopt a prudent policy. We will work in consultation with all internal forces,” he told Reuters as hundreds of people thronged his house to congratulate him in the northwestern town of Nowshera.

Another senior JI leader reiterated campaign pledges to bring US military action to an end.

“We will stop the ongoing pursuit of Taleban and Al-Qaeda when we form the government,” JI Secretary General Munnawar Hasan said. “We will go by the rule of law. Taleban and Al-Qaeda members are our brothers.”

Commonwealth election observers yesterday declared the elections “for the most part transparent,” but said there were doubts over whether there was a “truly level” playing field.

“While our observers encountered a number of irregularities and disturbances, we received no major complaints from polling agents and on the whole what we observed was orderly and peaceful,” the head of the team, Tan Sri Dato Musa Bin Hitam declared in a preliminary statement.

“As for the conduct of elections on polling day, I consider that they have been well organized and for the most part transparent.”

But, PPP’s self-exiled leader Benazir Bhutto called for a re-election, alleging fraud in the counting of votes and pre-election engineering by the army-led government.

“These are not real results. I’m charging fraud. It’s a totally fraudulent, manipulated result,” Benazir told AFP in a telephone interview from London.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of ex-premier Nawaz Sharif also cried foul. “It is all arranged and pre-planned,” the party’s senior Vice President Syed Zafar Ali Shah told AFP.

“It is not a public mandate and it does not represent the choice of the Pakistani nation. It was arranged by the state and we are not convinced.”

The breathtaking gains by the MMA cast a shadow over Pakistan’s future cooperation with the US.

It sent stocks nosediving three percent on the key Karachi Stock Exchange KSE-100 index.

“We expect this development is a prime source of concern for the international community in general, and international investors in particular,” said Zaheeruddin Khalid, head of research at First Capital Securities.

Analysts said some support was expected for the religious parties given resentment in the North West Frontier Province at the war in Afghanistan, but not this much.

“It’s a question of magnitude,” said Islamabad-based political scientist Aqil Shah. “The numbers they’ve got is a little unexpected.”

“This will force any government formed to cut back on Pakistan’s support for the war on terror.”

Cricket legend Imran Khan was another surprise win, securing his home seat of Mianwali, an impoverished rural district of Punjab province, by a margin of 6,000 votes.

He too campaigned against Pakistan’s deep involvement in the US-led efforts to pursue the Taleban and Al-Qaeda, and on a heavy social justice and anti-corruption platform. (The Independent)