Pakistan has been consistent in one respect: military rulers up front have a limited shelf life. They can remain powers behind the throne after the first seizure of power by the Army sets the trend, but the people tire of the uniform as they tire of politicians. True, Pakistan has never had the luxury of a universally accepted Constitution after the Jinnah days, with the armed forces tinkering with it as they go along, but it has, over the years, built an idea of a fair Constitution.

Whatever the twists and turns of President General Pervez Musharraf's remaining days in office, he is living on borrowed time. The snowballing agitation over the removal of Ifthikar Mohammad Chaudhry, the Supreme Court chief justice, was a mere trigger to an expression of pent-up feelings. Once the dam burst, there was no stopping the deluge.

Obviously, President Musharraf mistimed and misjudged his action in seeking to remove the independent-minded chief justice with an eye on his own future survival. Since then, he has not put one foot right. The lawyers' full-throated support to Chaudhry multiplied on meeting official Opposition. And his car cavalcade from Islamabad to Lahore was more like the crowning of a new leader, complete with rose petals and laudatory declamations. Pakistan's private television channels went to town with live coverage, greatly boosting their own ratings and the Opposition movement.

In seeking to prevent a repeat of Chaudhry's Lahore coronation in Karachi, General Musharraf went overboard in blocking the airport's access and getting ally MQM to hold a counter-demonstration, resulting in a predictable bloodbath. But having tasted public adulation, Justice Chaudhry was not to be intimidated by being virtually imprisoned at Karachi airport. He took his by now familiar safari north to Abbotabad, to be feted by lawyers and a growing community of Opposition parties and dissidents.

Figuring that he had it in his power to muffle the most famous lawyer's political travels, he influenced cable operators to pull the plug on TV channels. And to ensure that the channels knew their place, a series of draconian restrictions were announced. Meeting vociferous protests from the Fourth Estate, reaching dramatically to Parliament, the President reluctantly rescinded the new measures.

In between, President Musharraf played his trump card: a ringing declaration of support from the country's real power brokers, the corps commanders, combined with a warning against insulting "national institutions," the Army and the Constitution, such as the latter is. The politicians read the tealeaves. The General's endorsement by his corps commanders was a sign of his weakness, rather than his strength. There was disquiet in the king's party and questions were asked about the silence of the party's eminence grise, Mushahid Hussain, who had earlier parachuted from Nawaz Sharif's party and was no doubt ruminating his future.

Without doubt, President Musharraf was earlier in a bit of a bother. He had to plan to hold power for another term while keeping his uniform through the mechanism of existing legislators. As cover, he sought the Pakistan People's Party's help. Ms Benazir Bhutto was willing - she is tiring of living in self-imposed exile - but the terms were not right. She seemed perfectly willing to let Musharraf stay on as President but needed the fig-leaf of stripping him of his uniform before assuming the Prime Minister's office. The other former Prime Minister in exile, Nawaz Sharif, waits hopefully for the end of the Musharraf era.

How and when President Musharraf goes, remain to be determined, but as he lives out his fading days of power, it is well to give him his due. As Pakistan's roll call of military dictators go, he is better than average and must be placed in the same league as Ayub Khan in seeking to do good for his country by his own light. In an effort to seek stability for his regime, he made two mistakes - exiling the leaders of the two mainstream parties and making a pact with Islamist parties, in the process giving the latter their first firm foothold in electoral politics.

Given this scenario, President Musharraf's was a fine balancing act between satisfying his American paymasters in the "war on terror" and keeping his domestic religious community in good humour. That he succeeded in his endeavours for as long as he did is a tribute to his abilities. At the same time, he confounded Indian public opinion by reversing his previous acts to initiate a peace process with Atal Behari Vajpayee, which has lasted for more than three years and a change of government in Delhi.

Musharraf's dilemma is an old one. A general cannot retain power as the country's ruler unless he wears the uniform, but being both President and Army chief for an indefinite period does not sit well with even a dressed-up democracy. And he is now working against the grain of Pakistan's unofficial law of Army rule. I recall that during my days in Rawalpindi in the days of Ayub Khan, a conversation I struck up with a taxi driver (he assuming I was a Pakistani) revealed the depth of disgust over Army rule and the feeling that the regime, in particular Ayub's son, was blatantly corrupt. That was in 1967.

Despite President Musharraf's new maladroit attempts to muzzle the media for self-preservation, he has been rather liberal to the Fourth Estate. Pakistani journalists have earned their right to freedom by their gutsy struggle, but it is surely ironical that the country's media have been freer under General Musharraf than they have been under either Nawaz Sharif or Benazir Bhutto. It revealed both the General's confidence in the stability of his regime and a desire to promote his version of "moderate Islam." He has never made a secret of his desire to emulate the Turkish model of embedding the military in the country's political policymaking apparatus although he must have found a dilution of the Turkish Army's role in governance in pursuit of European Union membership somewhat disconcerting.

General Musharraf identifies himself with the country's good, as every general who assumes power does. But there comes a time when the hurrahs recede and street demonstrators shout obscenities such as "Go, Musharraf, go." A new book also seeks to prove that the Army has its hand in the till, in the shape of an enormous number of economic enterprises it runs or controls. The most difficult thing is for a prima donna to say goodbye. So it is with a general, who was until recently master of what he surveyed.

-- Asian Age