The main pro-military party in Pakistan, the PML-Q, has won the speakership of the new assembly, giving it a strong chance of forming the next government.

Speaker votes

Chaudhry Amir Hussain (PML-Q): 167 Liaquat Baloch (MMA): 80 Aitzaz Ahsan (PPP): 71

Chaudhry Amir Hussain, a former minister, received 167 out of 327 votes.

In second place was the candidate for the Islamist alliance, the MMA, while the candidate of former premier Benazir Bhutto's party came third.

The vote came after the three parties failed to agree on Monday on a joint candidate for the Speaker's post.

President Musharraf has now directed the assembly to meet on Thursday to choose a prime minister.

Pakistan has been without a civilian government since elections last month, in which no single party won an overall majority.

The elections were the first since a military coup in 1999, in which General Pervez Musharraf seized power.

Walkout

The election for Speaker was briefly marred by a walkout by both the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of Ms Bhutto and the Islamist MMA.

Legislators for both groups staged a protest when several blank ballot papers were discovered in the ballot box for the vote.

Musharraf: President for next five years

PPP parliamentary leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim said that the discovery showed that the process was not clean.

His party and the MMA demanded an inquiry into how the blank papers appeared, but both accepted that the PML-Q candidate had clearly won.

Controversy

In a vote for a new prime minister, the winning candidate would have to get more than 171 votes out of the full 342-member house - even if some members do not turn up.

The BBC's Susannah Price in Islamabad says that Tuesday's election suggests the PML-Q has a good chance of forming the next government - but without the PPP and the religious groups it would have only a slim majority.

The new assembly convened for the first time last Saturday.

However, the opening session was marred by a controversy over President Musharraf's changes to the constitution.

General Musharraf himself is to remain president for the next five years after a controversial referendum held in April.