Of LATE, General Musharraf has come to resemble a politician on the campaign trail, trying desperately to get re-elected. In the process, he is making rash promises and savaging the opposition.

But more importantly, he is seeking to bolster the ragtag coalition of parties supporting him in and out of parliament. In particular, he is urgently attempting to cement the gaping cracks in the ‘Quaid’ faction of the Muslim League. For this, he is having to delve deep into the cesspit of Pakistani politics, a sure measure of how keen he is to hang on to power.

The other day, speaking to MPs from Lahore and Kasur, he is reported to have promised to halve the prices of kitchen items through state subsidies. I am sure his poor prime minister must have cringed at this bit of populist sloganeering, as he is presumably better acquainted with the laws of demand and supply than his military boss. In fact, this pledge reminded me a bit of the opposition’s promise to reduce prices to pre-1971 levels when they marched against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977. Needless to say, prices went up after they paved the way for Zia to seize power.

The general also lashed out at the Charter of Democracy signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in London recently, calling it “a political gimmick”. In response to a question, however, he confessed that he had not read the document. And yet, the main thrust of the charter will no doubt irritate him when he gets around to reading it as it asserts a determination to bring the army under civilian control.

Here is a quote from the Economist of May 6 that is of some relevance to our situation: “All long-lived governments have a natural lifespan before the bits start falling off. At some point, they lose the discipline and sense of purpose to carry on. Sheer physical and intellectual exhaustion gets them. They become accident-prone, relationships fracture and a death-wish often settles on their supporters in Parliament.”

True, this is about Blair’s government, and not Musharraf’s, but it easily could have been. The fact is that the president has nothing to offer except more of the same, and people are simply tired of hearing promises from the same person. Of course, they will hear the same pledges from Gen Musharraf’s eventual successor, but will give him the benefit of the doubt for a few years before the cycle is repeated.

When Musharraf first seized power, he gave us his seven-point agenda (Or was it five points? Or nine? Who remembers? And more to the point, who cares?). Dumped in the black hole where all political promises are lost for eternity, they no longer resonate in the public consciousness. Like all military rulers before him (and probably after him), he confused the might of the military with the ability to make things happen outside the barracks.

But political power is a far more elusive thing. To exercise it effectively, a leader must be able to coax and cajole, just as he must command. The military mind only understands the latter. In the early days of a dictatorship, a policy of “shock and awe” works, and the opposition is cowed. But after a while, when the uniformed rulers are revealed to be just like their civilian counterparts (and less effective, to boot), the novelty wears off, and the dictator is seen as yet another power-hungry politician.

Every dictator faces two problems: how to win legitimacy and how to hang on to power. Often these are intertwined, and the bulk of his political capital is frittered away in the pursuit of these two ends. And when state power is used almost exclusively to perpetuate one man’s rule, governance is ignored. The elaborate structure of the state is directed towards the benefit of the ruler and his immediate clique of supporters. The biggest beneficiary is the army which is the ruler’s source of power. But civilian collaborators are thrown a few crumbs to keep them on-side.

When this pattern is repeated time and again, it is inevitable that the authority of the state will seep away. The government of the day has few deterrent powers and no legitimacy as it is seen as the biggest law breaker of all. In such a situation, we should not be surprised when corruption and insurgencies flourish across the country. People see those in power feeding at the public trough, and want to have their share. And contemptuous of an enfeebled central government, they take up arms to solve real and perceived local problems, or to pursue ideological agendas.

So when the respected Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace rank Pakistan as ninth in the list of failed or failing states, we need to reflect on why we are in the company of Afghanistan and Somalia. Instead, most commentators here have dismissed the report out of hand, often imputing bizarre motives to the authors.

A state is considered to have failed when its writ is ignored by the majority of its citizens. Consider this example as an illustration: over three years ago, Gen Musharaf vowed to the world that he would bring the madressahs under control. Despite having an army of half a million as well as the entire state apparatus at his disposal, he was unable to do anything to change their curricula or get their accounts audited. Even his own ministers and senior members of the ruling coalition disagree with him on the danger these seminaries pose.

When the religious parties threatened to launch a movement against the government if it went ahead with its plan to drop the religion column in the new machine-readable passports, President Musharraf immediately backed down. Similarly, he dropped the plans for Kalabagh dam when faced with fierce opposition to the project.

Of course it is a good thing to evolve a consensus, but Gen Musharraf has been forced to retreat because he did not have the power to impose his will, even when he was convinced these decisions were good for the country. On a micro level, we see the breakdown of state authority around us in every facet of our lives. The lawlessness, the corruption and inefficiency of our courts, the chaos in our educational system, the disregard for the environment, the virtual collapse of the power grid this summer, and the bureaucratic gridlock that has paralysed the country all bear witness to how far we have sunk.

When the realisation that he was past his sell-by date hit home in the shape of the recent local body elections, Tony Blair finally indicated that he was ready to leave next year. Gen Musharraf, however, shows no sign of following suit.