ISLAMABAD, 21 February 2008 — Pakistan’s two main opposition parties are trying to put aside decades of rivalry to form a two-thirds majority in Parliament with other groups to challenge President Pervez Musharraf.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party have never formed a coalition government and were staunch political adversaries between 1988 and 1999, when each party held power twice.

Forging a common bond will be key to political stability in the country after Musharraf suspended the constitution and fired his top judges to maintain his grip on power.

“Sharif and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari have a very close understanding on the issue of returning Pakistan to constitutional rule and cutting back military intervention in politics,” said Hussain Haqqani, a US-based Pakistani analyst. “Although they may disagree on the nitty-gritty, they now see Musharraf, rather than each other, as the enemy,” he said.

Sharif and Zardari, Benazir’s widower, invited other political groups to join them when they sit down today in an attempt to forge a coalition government.

Negotiations could last for days. But, if they agree, it would leave Musharraf with two choices, said analysts. He could either quit or drag out political upheavals with a hostile Parliament that would try to oust him on grounds he violated the constitution when he imposed emergency rule. “My sixth sense is that he will leave,” said Ijaz Shafi Gilani, chairman of pollsters Gallup Pakistan.

Zardari told the BBC’s Urdu-language service that Musharraf had said he would quit if he no longer had the people’s support, and vowed that the PPP would put the issue of the president’s future before Parliament.

Despite the adverse poll outcome, Musharraf remained defiant. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal yesterday, he said he plans to stay in office. Asked if he had contemplated resigning, Musharraf replied: “No, not yet. We have to move forward in a way that we bring about a stable democratic government to Pakistan.” He said it was premature to comment on who might be the country’s next prime minister, as that was a matter for the political parties to decide. On whether he could work with Sharif, Musharraf said: “The government is run by the prime minister. The president has no mandate to share governing power with the prime minister.”

He added: “The clash would be if the prime minister and president would be trying to get rid of each other. I only hope we would avoid these clashes.” Opinion polls before the election showed that up to three-quarters of Pakistanis questioned said it was time for Musharraf to go.

US President George W. Bush, meanwhile, described the vote as a victory for the people of Pakistan, while a State Department spokesman urged the next government to work with Musharraf.

According to Haqqani, the US must rethink its “Musharraf-centric policy and come to understand that Musharraf is part of the problem, not part of the solution.” “It is a repudiation of full US support for Musharraf and for the notion that he is indispensable,” Haqqani said in a telephone interview from New York. “Pakistani voters have said he’s definitely dispensable. And Washington should respond to that.”

With 262 of 268 contested races decided, the Pakistan People’s Party had 87 seats in the new legislature and Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League took 67. Another anti-Musharraf group, the Awami National Party, plus smaller groups and independents held enough seats to give Zardari and Sharif a prospect of a two-thirds-strong coalition — enough to impeach Musharraf and to change the constitution to reduce the president’s power.

While Zardari and Sharif haven’t worked together before as leaders, their partnership might be eased by the legacy of Benazir, said Haris Gazdar, an economic and political analyst at the Karachi-based Collective for Social Science Research.

Benazir established her own relationship with Sharif and pressed both men to be more pragmatic, he said. “To the extent that Zardari and Sharif continue to think along her lines, they will be able to cooperate,” he said.

“Zardari and Sharif have reconciled and they do talk quite frankly and in a very friendly manner,” said Haqqani.

Following imprisonment after he was overthrown by Musharraf and the enforced exile, Sharif reconciled with Benazir, signing a “charter of democracy” with her in 2006, in which they pledged to cooperate in getting the army removed from politics.

Sharif has been “statesmanlike” in his opening to Benazir’s party, notably following her assassination, said Rashed Rahman, a Lahore-based political commentator. He looks like a man who “is not in a hurry” and “who wants to build a national consensus and bring other parties with him,” Rahman said on Dawn News TV channel.

Meanwhile, Zardari ruled out admitting the pro-Musharraf PML(Q) at a press conference yesterday but said a southern regional rival friendly with Musharraf was welcome to join the coalition.

“I want to make a government along with MQM,” Zardari said referring to Muttaheda Qaumi Movement.

Zardari said the president’s fate would lie with Parliament.

“Parliament will decide which president it can work with and which president it cannot,” he said.

Zardari alleged that authorities were withholding the results and trying to change them.

“Last night the situation was that they were trying to change the results,” Zardari said referring to Tuesday night.

“They are trying to rig the results by holding the final results of several seats,” another PPP leader Taj Haider said.

— With input from agencies