The leaders of the two top parties in Pakistan's recent election met yesterday to discuss forming a coalition government that could force President Pervez Musharraf out of power.

President Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 military coup in the nuclear-armed country and has been one of Washington's top Muslim allies against al Qaeda, is vulnerable to a hostile Parliament after his supporters were heavily defeated in Monday's election.

Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister whom Mr Musharraf overthrew more than eight years ago and whose party came second in the election, goes into the coalition talks having made clear he would like the President to go.

But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, Mr Musharraf said he was not ready to resign. "We have to move forward in a way that we bring about a stable democratic government to Pakistan," he said.

US President George W. Bush's administration has urged the next government to work with President Musharraf and says Washington needs Pakistan - which borders Afghanistan where US and Nato-led forces are fighting Islamist militants - as an ally.

Mrs Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) emerged as the main victor in the election and has begun coalition talks with Mr Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), also known as the PML-N or Nawaz League.

"We are going to find solutions to the problems of Pakistan," Mrs Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, who took over as PPP leader after she was killed, said of his meeting with Mr Sharif.

"Parliament will decide which President it can work with and which President it cannot," Mr Zardari told reporters.

Analysts say Mr Musharraf will be hoping Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif fail to agree on a coalition, and that this could occur because of a history of enmity and mistrust between the centre-left PPP and the centre-right PML (N).