ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's ruling party conceded defeat today after opposition parties routed allies of President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections that could threaten the rule of America's close ally in the war on terror.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted in Musharraf's 1999 coup, suggested that the Pakistani president should listen to the "verdict" of the people in the Monday balloting and step down.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, told AP Television News that "we accept the results with an open heart" and "will sit on opposition benches" in the new parliament."

The results cast doubt on the political future of Musharraf, who was re-elected to a five-year term last October in a controversial parliamentary ballot.

The private Geo TV network said the party of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and another group led by ex-premier Nawaz Sharif had so far won 153 seats, more than half of the 272-seat National Assembly.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Q party was a distant third with 38 seats. A ream of party stalwarts and former Cabinet ministers lost in their constituencies.

Final results were not expected before this evening, but the election's outcome appeared to be a stinging public verdict on Musharraf's rule after his popularity plummeted following his decisions late last year to impose emergency rule, purge the judiciary, jail political opponents and curtail press freedoms.

With the support of smaller groups and independent candidates, the opposition could gain the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach Musharraf, who has angered many Pakistanis by allying the country with Washington in 2001 to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Musharraf has promised to work with whatever government emerges from the election. But the former general is hugely unpopular among the public and opposition parties that have been catapulted into power are likely to find little reason to work with him — particularly since he no longer controls the powerful army.

Sharif has been especially outspoken in demanding that Musharraf be removed and that the Supreme Court justices whom the president sacked late last year be returned to their posts.