Do the election results in Pakistan spell the end of President Musharraf?

Musharraf did not believe the opinion polls. He accused the media of bias and tried to silence it.

His response to pollsters saying that he was an unpopular leader was "Go to the villages and rural areas... you will see how popular I am." Now the people have spoken. “No gas, No Flour” (even at extortionate prices) means no vote.

The two main opposition parties - the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) - will have a dominant presence in the next parliament having won more than 60% of the seats.

In the next few days the public will learn if these two opposition parties can agree on forming a coalition and whether they will try to remove Musharraf.

The 3 main parties results are as follows:

• Pakistan People's Party has won 87 seats
• Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) has 66 seats
• PML-Q: (pro-Musharraf) has 40 seats

This was in spite of the campaigning conditions being in favour of the ruling party as the stated by the European Union election monitors.

In Lahore, Aitezaz Ahsan, the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association demanded that all the deposed judges be released and restored. He stated that only executive orders are required for the reinstatement of the judges and that a two third majority is not required.

Aitezaz Ahsan had been under house arrest until Wednesday.