Pakistani leaders set for talks

The opposition PPP is celebrating the election result

The leaders of the two parties that won the most seats in Monday's elections in Pakistan are due to meet to discuss forming a coalition government.

Such a government could force President Pervez Musharraf from power.

The Pakistan People's Party leader, Benazir Bhutto's husband Asif Zardari, will have talks with Nawaz Sharif, who heads the Pakistan Muslim League.

Mr Sharif has said he wants Mr Musharraf to go, but Mr Zardari's party has been less clear-cut on the issue.

Mr Musharraf has said he wishes to stay and work towards stable democratic government in Pakistan.

He said the polls had strengthened moderate forces inside the country.

Correspondents say the most likely coalition government is between Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif's parties, as they would have more than half of parliament's seats between them.

If a new governing coalition manages to muster a two-thirds majority in parliament, it could call for Mr Musharraf to be impeached.

No guarantees

Mr Sharif has said he is prepared to discuss joining a coalition with Mr Zardari's party in order "to rid Pakistan of dictatorship forever".

But a coalition between the two is the most likely option, there are certainly issues on which they disagree and there are no guarantees an alliance will emerge.

Separately, Mr Zardari has ruled himself out as prime minister, despite his party's success at the election.

He has said his PPP party would choose another candidate to lead a coalition government that opposition parties are expected to form.

Mr Zardari, a deeply divisive figure in Pakistani politics who has spent several years in prison on corruption charges, is not an MP and is therefore not currently eligible to serve as prime minister.

But there had been speculation that he might enter parliament via a by-election.

Major ally

Mr Zardari has said his party could work with the MQM, a Sindh-based regional party which supports Mr Musharraf.

Mr Sharif has urged Mr Musharraf to resign, and a PPP statement cited alleged remarks by the president that he would step down if the parties supporting him were defeated in elections.

In an earlier interview for the US newspaper the Wall Street Journal, Mr Musharraf said he would not resign or retire.

He was re-elected to the presidency last October, in a parliamentary vote boycotted by the opposition as unconstitutional.

He has been a major US ally in the "war on terror" but his popularity has waned at home amid accusations of authoritarianism and incompetence.

With votes counted in 258 out of 272 constituencies, the PPP has won 87 seats, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The Pakistan Muslim League, or PML-N, is in second place with 67 seats so far.

Musharraf rules out resignation

The party of Nawaz Sharif (centre) is in second place

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, says he has no plans to resign, despite a sweeping victory by the opposition in the country's parliamentary elections.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Musharraf said there was a need to move forward to help bring about a stable democratic government in Pakistan.

Meanwhile the party of late former PM Benazir Bhutto says it is ready to form a coalition with Nawaz Sharif's PML-N.

The main party backing President Musharraf suffered a heavy defeat.

A union of Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) with the PML-N of another former PM, Nawaz Sharif, would have more than half parliament's seats.

The president's position has never looked more precarious, the BBC's Chris Morris in Islamabad says.

If a new governing coalition manages to muster a two-thirds majority in parliament, it could call for Mr Musharraf to be impeached.

NATIONAL RESULTS SO FAR PPP (Bhutto's party) : 87 PML-N (Nawaz Sharif): 66 PML-Q: (pro-Musharraf) 39 MQM (Sindh-based): 19 ANP (Secular Pashtuns): 10 MMA (Islamic alliance): 3 Others: 34 Source: Election commission

But Mr Musharraf said that he would try to work with any new government.

"I would like to function with any party and any coalition because that is in the interest of Pakistan," he told the Wall Street Journal.

"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," the president added.

Mr Musharraf was re-elected to the presidency last October, in a vote boycotted by the opposition as unconstitutional.

He has been a major US ally in the "war on terror" but his popularity has waned at home amid accusations of authoritarianism and incompetence.

The US State Department described Monday's election as a "step toward the full restoration of democracy".

'End of dictatorship'

At a press conference on Tuesday, Ms Bhutto's widower and the PPP leader, Asif Ali Zardari, said his party would "form a government of national consensus which will take along every democratic force".

"For now, the decision of the party is that we are not interested in any of those people who are part and parcel of the last government," he said, seemingly ruling out any coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League's pro-Musharraf wing, the PML-Q.

With votes counted in 258 out of 272 constituencies, the PPP has won 87 seats, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari invited Mr Sharif to join a coalition

The PML-N, or Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz, is in second place with 66 seats so far.

Mr Sharif said earlier on Tuesday that he was prepared to discuss joining a coalition with Mr Zardari's party in order "to rid Pakistan of dictatorship forever".

The two parties so far have a combined total of 153 seats in the 272-seat parliament.

President Pervez Musharraf main parliamentary ally, the PML-Q, has already admitted defeat.

The party has come a distant third, with 39 seats so far.

PML-Q chairman, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, told Associated Press Television News his party accepted the results "with an open heart" and was prepared to "sit on opposition benches".

Mr Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, stepped down as army chief last year, at the urging of his foreign allies.

The parliamentary election has been seen as a key milestone in Pakistan's transition from military to civilian rule.

The election was preceded by months of violence, including the suicide attack that killed PPP leader, Ms Bhutto, in December.

The poll was initially scheduled for early January but was delayed after her assassination.

Pakistan's military has been trying to contain a Taleban-influenced Islamist insurgency along the country's rugged frontier with Afghanistan.

Bhutto murder: the key questions

Several days after Benazir Bhutto's assassination, the exact circumstances of her killing remain unclear. The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Karachi has been examining the differing accounts of her death and the direction in which the murder inquiry is heading.

THE DIFFERING ACCOUNTS

Many questions remain about Ms Bhutto's murder

In the immediate aftermath of the blast, police said that Miss Bhutto had safely escaped the attack. But later it became apparent that she had been taken to the Rawalpindi General Hospital's emergency section.

A seven-member team of doctors which examined her sent a report to the health ministry saying Ms Bhutto had open wounds on her left temporal region from which "brain matter was exuding". The report did not say what caused the wound, apparently because no autopsy had been performed on the body.

A day later, an Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema, told the media that Ms Bhutto died of a skull fracture caused by a lever attached to the sun-roof of her bullet-proof vehicle. He said she must have hit her head against the lever when she ducked to escape the assassins' bullets. He denied that her body carried any gunshot wounds.

These differing accounts inevitably fuelled speculation about a possible cover-up at worst, and an attempt by the government to sidestep its responsibility at best.

The interior ministry's version has been rubbished by Miss Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) which says that she was shot in the neck, and that the bullet exited from the back of her head.

Party spokeswoman Sherry Rehman said that she was with Miss Bhutto when the attack took place, and later cleaned her body at the hospital. She says that she saw two wounds that were bleeding profusely.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Militants made no secret of their dislike of Ms Bhutto

One point of contention between the PPP and the government has been the security provided to Ms Bhutto.

Given Ms Bhutto's status as a former prime minister and her popularity, the government would not like to be seen as having failed to provide adequate security to her, more so since the government itself had warned Ms Bhutto about threats to her life.

But if the PPP's version is held to be true and the assassin indeed got so close to Ms Bhutto as to be able to hit her at almost point-blank range, then all sorts of questions are raised, ranging from lax security to complicity by elements within the government.

JUST HOW LAX WAS THE SECURITY?

At least two pieces of information that have come to light since the assassination suggest that security for Ms Bhutto was indeed lax.

One is an e-mail she sent to her long time friend and lobbyist in the US, Mark Siegal, on 26 October.

There are questions over the level of security

She wrote in the e-mail that she had been made to feel insecure by (President) Musharraf's "minions" and had not received the requested improvements to her security.

She said she was being prevented from using private cars or vehicles equipped with tinted windows. She said that she had also not been provided with jammers to prevent remote controlled bombs or police mobile outriders to cover her vehicle on all sides.

The other material is amateur video footage that appears to show a man in sunglasses shooting her from close quarters and another man draped in a white robe blowing himself up soon afterwards.

No security presence is seen in the entire video clip.

Media reports suggest that the police and rangers guarding checkposts around the exit gate of Liaquat Bagh, where Ms Bhutto addressed the rally, left their posts before Ms Bhutto's vehicle drove out of the park.

WHY DID MISS BHUTTO'S HUSBAND REFUSE AN AUTOPSY?

Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Zardari, said that he was contacted by the Punjab home secretary who wanted permission to hold a post mortem examination, but that he refused the request.

"We know how these autopsies are conducted and how the reports can be manipulated. We also know how she died," he told the media on Sunday.

In conservative Pakistani society, women's bodies are rarely allowed by their relatives to be subjected to a post mortem examination. It is even avoided in the case of men due to the belief that it constitutes disrespect to the deceased.

WHY WAS THE SCENE OF THE BLAST HOSED DOWN?

The scene of the blast was washed with a high pressure hose of the fire brigade hours after the incident, apparently to clean the road.

The interior ministry spokesman said the spot was washed after all the required evidence had been collected by the investigators.

He brushed aside observations by the media that the investigators may still have had to revisit the site for verification of evidence they had collected earlier.

WHAT EVIDENCE IS THERE THAT THE ATTACK WAS ORDERED BY THE TALEBAN?

After the attack, the interior ministry provided the media with transcripts of a telephone conversation between a top Taleban commander in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, and an unnamed person.

PPP supporters disagree with the government's version of events

The two congratulate each other on a job well done, but Miss Bhutto's name is not mentioned in the brief conversation.

The ministry spokesman says an audio tape of the Pashto language conversation can also be provided to the media, adding that the government has Mr Mahsud's voice signature to prove that it is him talking.

The transcripts were made public on the day an Italy-based news agency - Adnkronos International - quoted an al-Qaeda spokesman, Mustafa Abu al-Yezid, as claiming responsibility for the assassination.

Shortly before Ms Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October, the Daily Times newspaper carried a statement from Mr Mahsud, saying he was determined to kill her because she was an American agent.

A senator from South Waziristan who had reportedly passed the statement to the newspaper denied having done so two weeks later, when Ms Bhutto's convoy was bombed in Karachi on 18 October.

Mr Mahsud's spokesman has promptly denied the interior ministry's allegation, claiming that the audiotape of the alleged telephonic conversation is a fake.

He has also demanded investigation into the killing by "independent" agencies to identify the actual culprits.

Bhutto visits ancestral village

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has arrived under heavy security at her ancestral village in Larkana in southern Sindh province.

It is her first public trip outside Karachi since nearly 140 people were killed in an assassination attempt.

The attack came within hours of her arrival in Pakistan last week after eight years of self-imposed exile.

At her home village, Ms Bhutto is to pray at the tomb of her executed father, former PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

She was greeted by crowds of supporters as she arrived at the heavily-guarded airport in Sukkur, near her home village of Garhi Khuda Baksh.

Her convoy to Karachi airport had a strong police escort and side roads along her route were sealed off.

Seat of power

Dozens of activists from her Pakistan People's Party, armed with AK-47s, are guarding her father's tomb.

Larkana, where the Bhutto family are large landowners, is Ms Bhutto's seat of power, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad.

She will want to hold some kind of public rally, but after her homecoming parade was torn apart by bombs on 18 October it is not certain she will be able to, says our correspondent.

Ms Bhutto has vowed to stay in Pakistan despite the attack and campaign in the parliamentary election scheduled to be held by January.

"People are just being butchered and it has to stop, somebody has to find a solution and my solution is let's restore democracy," she told a news conference before leaving Karachi.

"Let's give the people education, let's give the people empowerment, let's give the people employment."

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf granted Ms Bhutto an amnesty from corruption charges that allowed her to return to Pakistan.

She has been negotiating with Gen Musharraf over a possible power-sharing deal.

Bhutto determined to contest poll

Ms Bhutto described the attacks as "dastardly and cowardly"

Former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto has promised she will never surrender to militants following twin bomb attacks on her convoy which killed 130 people.

Ms Bhutto told that there could be more attacks to come, but said she and her party were determined to contest the parliamentary elections in January.

The carnage has raised questions about the safety of campaigning for the poll.

Earlier, she said ex-army officials had been behind the attacks, but stressed she was not blaming the government.

She also said she had been warned that she would be targeted by four militant groups before returning to Pakistan after eight years in self-imposed exile.

Correspondents say many are asking why Ms Bhutto held the procession in Karachi on Thursday despite such fears.

'Saving democracy'

In an interview, Ms Bhutto said she was lucky to be alive following the two attacks on her motorcade as it travelled down the main road from Karachi's airport to the city centre.

What I really need to ask myself is: do I give up, do I let the militants determine the agenda? Benazir Bhutto

Authorities have said the first blast was caused by a hand grenade and that the second was a suicide bombing, but the exact sequence of events remains unclear.

She said armed militants had targeted her and that she had been saved by the bravery of her bodyguards.

Ms Bhutto conceded she was at constant risk of another attack in the future, particularly during an election campaign.

"What I really need to ask myself is: do I give up, do I let the militants determine the agenda?" she said.

Ms Bhutto said she and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) were determined to contest the parliamentary election due to be held by mid-January and were ready to take the risks to defend democracy.

"I've been having a party meeting and, believe me, the spirit amongst the party is one that I'm so proud of because they say we can't let the militants dictate to us what's going to happen, and that we have to try and save Pakistan by saving democracy. So my supporters are ready."

Warnings

Ms Bhutto was not very specific about who she thought had attacked her, but did say she had received a warning about Pakistani and Afghan members of al-Qaeda, the Taleban and local Pakistani groups.

I don't believe the state or the government was involved in the attack on me at this stage Benazir Bhutto

Several Islamist militant groups had threatened to attack Ms Bhutto after she promised to confront those operating in the northern tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Half an hour before the bombs went off, she said, her security personnel had detained someone found with explosives around his body.

The person was handed over to the police, but Ms Bhutto said she did not know whether the police had discovered anything.

Ms Bhutto said Pakistan's President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, had called her shortly after the attack and that she was not blaming the government for what had happened.

KEY DATES 06 Oct: Presidential polls held 17 Oct: Supreme Court resumes hearing challenges to Musharraf candidacy 18 Oct: Benazir Bhutto's homecoming 15 Nov: Parliamentary term ends and general election must be held by mid-January

"I don't believe the state or the government was involved in the attack on me at this stage," she said.

"But I do believe that the sympathisers of the militants had managed to infiltrate some of our agencies and some of our administrative apparatus in a new guise and that they abused their positions to give covert support to the militants, which is why controlling militancy has really not succeeded within the country."

Ms Bhutto said extremists were a small minority in Pakistan and that she wanted to appeal to those who wanted to build a moderate society.