Islamabad, Pakistan ? Pakistanis voting in the first election since a 1999 coup dealt a sharp blow to President Pervez Musharraf’s supporters and handed unprecedented power to hard-line Islamic parties that revile Western ways.

Musharraf, a general who heads the army and was given five more years in power in a referendum last April, will remain the country’s main political force regardless of who controls parliament.

He has final say over national security and foreign affairs but may be forced to modify his support for Washington Pakistan has been a key ally in the war against terror to accommodate the rising power of the religious parties.

In coming weeks, political parties will jockey to form a ruling coalition and thereby get the right to name the next prime minister, who will run the country’s day-to-day affairs. Musharraf has said he will swear in the new leader Nov. 1.

The two best-known Pakistani politicians former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were both blocked from contesting the race, leaving an opening for the religious parties to do well.

With about two-thirds of the 272 general seats in the national parliament decided, a pro-Musharraf coalition, the Qaid-e-Azam faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, won the largest number of seats in Thursday’s election. But their 61 seats were far fewer than needed to form a majority.

The coalition of religious parties, the United Action Front, swept to a surprising victory in the rugged Northwest Frontier, along the border with Afghanistan, and stands poised to form the first Islamic provincial government in Pakistan’s history. The coalition could also be a partner in the government in Baluchistan, another province bordering Afghanistan.

Religious leaders in Baluchistan are already promising to banish American soldiers from Pakistani soil, and claim they will enforce strict Islamic laws.