ISLAMABAD, 15 October — The top religious alliance leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, fired the first shot yesterday asking the US troops to leave Pakistan and felt no need to give military basis or facility to the foreign forces for their operations in neighboring country.

Qazi, who is president of the Jamaat-e-Islami, said that the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal parliamentarians-elect would not take oath under PCO/LFO but the 1973 constitution, and vowed to introduce true Islamic Shariah in the country. “Every policy of the government including defense and economic policies must be routed through the Parliament, which should be the supreme legislative body as the MMA would not accept supremacy of any other institution or individual over and above the supremacy of the parliament,” said the MMA leader, who also talked about “flexibility” in the attitude if the other side is also showing a positive response.

Addressing a crowded press conference for the first time in Islamabad after the MMA emerged one of the major component in the National Assembly by winning around 50 seats, Qazi said: “We do not need foreign troops — we can defend ourselves — and Pakistan should not join any arrangement through which our soil is used against a neighboring country.”

Islamic parties which have emerged as potential coalition partners said yesterday they would seek to impose Islamic law in the country and ask US troops to leave.

“We assure the international community that we are not terrorists,” Qazi told reporters. “We will not use this country for terrorism, nor allow anyone to use this country for terrorism,” he said, before adding: “But we do not approve of foreign interference. For this we do not need any help from the American forces nor their bases in the country. There should also be no such bases here which could be used for interference in the affairs of neighboring states.”

He was referring to the small US military presence in Pakistan concentrated at the Jacobabad air base, from where search and rescue operations in Afghanistan are launched.

The MMA won 50 seats, eclipsing religious parties’ performance at the 1997 election when they won just two. It makes them the third largest party behind the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam or PML(QA) with 77 seats and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) which won 62.

In contrast to the vocal MMA, the PML(QA), has kept a low profile since becoming the largest party in Parliament at the election. Dubbed the “king’s party” for its perceived support of President Pervez Musharraf, its leader Mian Mohammad Azhar suffered the humiliation of not winning a seat, forcing him to hand over the reins to Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

Local media reported talks between PML(QA) and the PPP led by exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, which was the second largest party ahead of the MMA. But it is far from clear whether the two parties would be able to resolve their differences, with PML(QA) seen as a loose union of candidates designed to weaken the anti-Musharraf lobby and the PPP fiercely opposed to continued military rule.

For his part, the leader of the PPP in Pakistan, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, told Reuters late on Sunday he had not ruled out joining forces either with the PML(QA) or the MMA. The fact that the MMA is a grouping of such disparate religious parties opposed to each other in the past raises questions about its ability to remain united, analysts said. And how much the composition of the coalition in Pakistan actually matters remains to be seen.