I won't step down, says beaten Musharraf

President Pervez Musharraf will not step down as head of state despite the sweeping election victory by his opponents, his spokesman says.

Final results from this week’s parliamentary poll were expected today, but with the count nearly complete, two opposition parties have won enough seats to form a new government, though they will probably fall short of the two-thirds needed to impeach the president.

So far, they have garnered 154 of the 268 contested seats, according to the Election Commission.

But Mr Musharraf’s spokesman Rashid Quereshi said the president intended to work with the new government and would serve out his term that expires in 2012.

“The people on Monday didn’t vote to elect a new president,” he said. “In fact, they participated in the elections to elect the new parliament.”

The new government, expected to be installed by mid-March, will determine how to tackle the country’s formidable challenges, including rising prices and the threat from Islamic extremism.

Pakistan’s new leaders must also decide how to deal with Mr Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup and went on to become a key ally in the US war on terror, an unpopular decision in the Muslim nation of 160 million.

His decisions to suspend the constitution, purge the judiciary and round up political opponents sent his approval ratings plummeting, and the sound defeat suffered by the pro-Musharraf party was widely seen as a repudiation of the president.

Speaking in Lahore, Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister and leader of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N, recalled statements by Mr Musharraf last year that he would step down if he lost the support of the Pakistani people.

“He has closed his eyes,” Mr Sharif told reporters. “He has said before that he would go when the people want him to do so and now the people have given their verdict.”

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal posted on the newspaper’s website, Mr Musharraf confirmed he intended to remain in office and work with the new government.

“We have to move forward in a way that we bring about a stable democratic government to Pakistan,” he said.

He agreed the election outcome was a reflection of Pakistanis’ dissatisfaction with his government, citing economic problems and his attempt to rein in judges as well as sympathy for the opposition after the assassination of their charismatic leader, Benazir Bhutto.

“All these things had a negative impact,” Mr Musharraf said.

Ms Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, said he would meet Mr Sharif and other opposition leaders soon “to form a government of national unity”.

Mr Zardari made it clear that he would not include politicians who had been allied with Mr Musharraf, but carefully avoided an unequivocal statement about whether Mr Musharraf should remain in power.

US senator John Kerry, who met Mr Musharraf along with other US politicians, said the president expressed his willingness to work with the new government.

But the former general is so unpopular among the Pakistani public that opposition parties are likely to find little reason to work with him - particularly since he no longer controls the powerful army.

At best, he faces the prospect of remaining in power with sharply-diminished powers even if the opposition fails to muster the two-thirds support in parliament to impeach him.

White House press secretary Dana Perino, travelling with President George Bush in Africa, said it was too soon to know whether the election had weakened Mr Musharraf’s power.

“I think what President Musharraf has shown is an ability to provide for the country a chance to be confident in their government,” she said.

US Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who observed the election, said the results meant the US could shift its Pakistan policy from one based on Mr Musharraf to “one based on an entire people”.