Islamabad: General Pervez Musharraf completes five years as Pakistan's ruler tomorrow (Oct 12, 2004) having seized power with the promise of restoring democracy but he does not appear to be in a mood to shed the uniform as pledged.

Sixty-year-old trained Commando's tenure has witnessed a series of ups and downs in relations with India, the low points being terrorist attack on Indian Parliament, continued cross border terrorism and failure of the Agra summit.

The current year has marked a relatively positive phase in Indo-Pak ties with the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to Islamabad in January and Musharraf's talks with his successor Manmohan Singh in New York last month.

Musharraf ousted the elected Government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999 accusing it of corruption and ruining the economy and had promised to restore democracy, bring political stability and usher in economic progress by building investors confidence. He took over as President weeks ahead of his maiden trip to India to attend the Agra summit in 2001.

After five years in power he has made out a case for his continuation as President and Army Chief saying there is a need to fight al-Qaeda and domestic terrorists to stabilise Pakistan internally and externally besides pursuing the fledgling Indo-Pak peace process.

To facilitate his continuation in both the posts and to remove any legal hurdles, the military-backed Government headed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz introduced a bill in the National Assembly to enable him to continue in both the posts. It is expected to be adopted later this week as the Government has a comfortable majority.

Opposition parties, who last year managed to put out a spirited resistance in Parliament to thwart attempts by Musharraf to legitimise his military rule, have failed to put up a united front this time around against his expected continuation in the two posts.

Internationally also he has found little resistance to his continuation in the post of Army Chief.

While US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage last week left the issue of uniform to Pakistan to deal with it, British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon during his visit to Islamabad last week said UK would "understand" if Musharraf decided to retain his uniform in the interest of the global fight against terrorism. Musharraf has also strengthened his control over the all-powerful Army High Command by appointing his loyalists to key posts in the Army and revamped the military's command structure.

He appointed ISI Chief Gen Ehsanul Haq as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, a powerful post which co-ordinates the Army, Navy and Air Force and nominated Karachi Corps Commander Gen Saleem Hayat as Vice Chief of Army.