LONDON, Feb 24: Pervez Musharraf is considering stepping down as president of Pakistan rather than waiting to be forced out by his victorious opponents, a report in The Sunday Telegraph said quoting his close aides.

Close friends of the president and his confidants told the paper that the president believed he had run out of options and had started discussing an exit strategy for himself. One of them thought “it is now just a matter of days and not months because he would like to make a graceful exit on a high”.

The president is said to have formed his opinion after three of the main parties who triumphed in last week’s poll announced they would form a coalition government, and also pledged to reinstate the country’s chief justice and 60 other judges sacked by him in November.

(According to reports from Islamabad, presidential spokesperson Maj Gen (retd) Rashid Qureshi has denied that the president was considering any such move.)

The paper quoted some presidential aides as saying that, Mr Musharraf wanted to avoid a power struggle with the newly elected parliament, in which his opponents will be close to the two-thirds majority needed to impeach him and remove him from office.

“He may have made many mistakes, but he genuinely tried to build the country and he doesn’t want to destroy it just for the sake of his personal office,” said an official close to the president.

Mr Musharraf, who stepped down as head of the army late last year, had called for a harmonious coalition after the defeat of his party – which won just 38 out of 272 National Assembly seats in the election and even publicly offered to work with the new prime minister – but his political rivals have demanded he go.

Officials said he had considered resigning immediately after the election results were known, but had been persuaded by party loyalists that his sudden departure could precipitate a crisis.

In an article published last week in an influential US daily he insisted that he would serve out his five-year presidential term.

Also, on Friday last US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came out strongly in his support and said the US would still like to work with President Musharraf.

Behind the scenes, his staff attempted to broker an agreement with PPP chief Asif Zardari, but despite pressure from the United States, which has relied on Mr Musharraf’s support for its war on terror, Mr Zardari refused to strike a deal.

He declined despite also claiming to have been threatened by Mr Musharraf’s allies that the government would revive long-standing corruption charges against him.

“I have seen these jails and this is not something new to me,” said Mr Zardari. “I fought all these fake cases instituted against me with courage and never disappointed anyone by asking for a pardon.

“I’m ready to fight it out again, and will never disappoint anyone.”

PPP officials said that any deal with Mr Musharraf would have dented the party’s public support and it was better to try to govern with the help of the other main parties.

“It doesn’t make any sense for us to sink with the dying man,” said Nisar Khuhro, a senior PPP leader, referring to Mr Musharraf.

Jamil Soomro, a PPP spokesman, said: “He has betrayed everyone since the very outset and we have no guarantee that he would not betray us once he stabilised his position.”

If Mr Musharraf decides to dig his heels in, the opposition parties plan to remove his constitutional powers to dissolve the assembly.

“I think his game is over but if he was able to survive for any reason, he would be like a dead fish, sitting and rotting the presidency,” said Khwaja Asif, a senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N.