By Musbah Abdul Baqi, IOL Pakistan Correspondent

ISLAMABAD, October 12 (IslamOnline) - With nearly all the votes counted Saturday, October 12, in Pakistan, Political contacts and consultations started for government formation, as no single party was able to muster enough seats to form a government at the national level. The anti-U.S. Islamic Alliance, however, is prepared to flex its muscles in a hung parliament.

The 18-month-old pro-government party Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) led the other parties on 77 seats, followed by banned ex-Premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) with 63 seats.

However, PML-Q president, Mian Muhammad Azhar, lost his own electoral battle in one of Lahore’s constituencies to a member of the Islamic Group, Salman Bitt, who ran as an independent candidate.

The six-party Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) (Meaning, in Urdu, the executive unionist assembly) Islamic alliance won 53 seats, a stunning gain over 1997 elections when the fundamentalists took only four.

The other main opposition party, the once mighty Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif crashed to just 14 seats.

Independent candidates, for their part, snatched 20 seats, and 10 small parties gained 15 seats.

The federal Pakistani parliament is composed of 272 seats, in addition to 10 seats for minorities (Christians, Siekh, and Hindus), and 60 seats reserved for women, out of which each party gets a number of seats proportionate with the total seats it gained.

Each province in Pakistan has its Provincial Parliament and cabinet. MMA has won absolute majority in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), bordering Afghanistan. Other provinces will have to rely on coalition cabinets, just like any central government to be formed now.

The Islamic Alliance, or MMA, consists of six religious parties. They are The Islamic Group, led by Qadi Hussien Ahmed, Pakistan Scholars Assembly-Norani Wing, led by Sheikh Shah Ahmed Norani, a veteran Pakistani politician leading the MMA. There are also Islam Scholars Assembly (Fadl al-Rahman Wing), Islam Scholars Assembly (Samie al-Haqq Wing), both Wings were staunch supporters of Taliban in Afghanistan. The fifth party is the Islamic Pakistani Movement, a Shiite group founded by Scholar Sajid Naqawi, and the sixth is Hadith People Assembly (Sajid Meir Wing), a Sunni fundamentalist group, led by Professor Sajid Mier.

Observers differed in explaining the reasons behind the great gains achieved by the religious parties. Some believe it was due to concentrating their efforts for the first time on general elections. Others say it was due to the high anti-U.S. sentiments amongst the silent majority of Pakistan, often referred to by Musharraf as only 3% of the population.

Meanwhile, some political analysts cast doubts over the alliance’s ability to work successfully on the political level, due to the big differences in thinking and political agendas of the six parties.

However, leaders of the religious parties dismissed that idea and pledged to work together and seize this historic opportunity, so as to make a difference on the Pakistani political level.

Emir of the Islamic Group in NWFP, Professor Mohammad Ibrahim, speaking to IslamOnline Saturday, October 12, stressed the same meaning. “My party is willing to go till the end to keep this coalition together. It is the only way [for religious parties] to make a difference. It is high time for traditional religious schools to cooperate with modern progressive religious groups,” he said.