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ISLAMABAD, Thursday (AFP) President Pervez Musharraf has set Saturday as the fresh date for the inauguration of Pakistan's first parliament since his 1999 coup, as a pro-Musharraf party claimed it had almost won over Islamists to join it in the future government.

The announcement on state television late Wednesday brought partial relief to the political limbo engulfing Pakistan since October 10 polls, but parties in the hung parliament have yet to declare a coalition.

"The first session of the national assembly has been called for Saturday, November 16 at 11:00 am," government spokesman Akram Shaheedi told AFP.

No party won enough seats to rule independently.

An Islamic party alliance, which holds the balance of power with a surprise 59 seats, has been locked in talks all week with the pro-regime Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) to nail concessions from Musharraf in his constitutional amendments.

PML-Q is the largest party in the national assembly with 103 of its 342 seats, but is short of the 172-seat majority needed to form government.

The Islamic parties have said they would only join hands with PML-Q if Musharraf reversed amendments that give him power to sack the parliament and guarantee a military role in politics through a military-dominated National Security Council.

The Islamic alliance's chief leaders, fundamentalist clerics Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, met top military officials for some two hours just before Musharraf announced a new date for parliament's opening, according to party and government officials who wished to remain anonymous.

They said the secret talks focussed on the role the Islamists could play in forming a stable coalition government.

The clerics were told the Islamists could improve their international image if they sat in government, the officials told AFP.

The main opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto had also been courting the Islamists but fell out over prime ministerial candidates..

PPP, which holds the second largest number of seats, said the vexing question of which parties would compromise on their key platforms to enter a coalition would be thrashed out on the parliament floor. 

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