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The leader of one of Pakistan's major opposition parties is urging President Pervez Musharraf to step aside, after the country's main ruling party suffered a major defeat at the polls.

"He has said before that he would go when the people want him to do so, and now the people have given their verdict," Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister and leader of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N, told reporters in Lahore.

Musharraf ousted Sharif from power in a 1999 military coup.

With the vast majority of ballots counted, the two main opposition parties had 154 of a possible 268 seats in the National Assembly. The main legislative backer of Musharraf had only 39 seats.

"We accept the election results, and will sit on opposition benches," Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q, told AP Television News on Tuesday. "We are accepting the results with grace and open heart."

CTV's Paul Workman told Â鶹ӰÊÓnet from Pakistan, "I think Musharraf had a great lesson in the wrath of democracy in this country."

The election puts the future of Musharraf, re-elected last fall by the outgoing parliament, very much in doubt, he said.

The Pakistan People's Party of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was in the lead following parliamentary voting in Pakistan, overtaking the PML-Q.

In second place was Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N.

The Daily Times newspaper summarized that development with this headline: "All the king's men gone!"

If the PPP and Sharif's party can gain enough support from smaller parties and independents to get over the two-thirds mark, Musharraf could get kicked out.

Challenges loom

In any event, "the conditions for smoothing sailing for the next few weeks aren't in place," Workman said.

It will be a challenge for the two opposition parties to work together, he said.

"The opposition parties have won but don't forget the two main opposition parties still have to negotiate about an alliance, getting together to form a government. That's going to take some time. These aren't two parties that have always worked together in the past so it may not be that easy," he said.

Musharraf has promised to work with whoever gets elected, but he is unpopular with the public and no longer directly controls the army.

Although final results aren't complete, many were seeing the vote tallies as a condemnation of Musharraf's recent decisions to impose military rule, fire members of the judiciary and limit press freedoms. His popularity dropped significantly following those decisions and his self-described status as a champion of democracy was questioned by many.

One Pakistani-Canadian, who represents Bhutto's party in this country, called the results a victory for democracy.

"The people of Pakistan have won the elections and pro-Musharraf, pro-Taliban forces got defeated," Ibrahim Daniyal, secretary of the Pakistan People's Party of Canada, told Canada AM on Tuesday.

He placed little hope in Musharraf's promise to work with the opposition.

"The nature of the beast cannot be changed. Musharraf is a dictator. A dictator cannot work hand in hand with democratic forces and there are obviously conflicts of interest."

With files from The Associated Press