Don't despair about Pakistan. Not yet...

At first glance, the latest developments in Pakistan are cause only for despair. By sacking the President and naming himself to the job ­ and then dissolving the Senate and National Assembly for good measure ­ the military strongman Pervez Musharraf seems to have driven the last nail into the coffin of civilian rule. That may yet prove to be the case. But a little caution is in order before final judgement is delivered.

General Musharraf, the latest in a line of soldiers who have ruled Pakistan for 26 of the 53 years since independence, was never likely to vanish entirely from the scene, even after the national elections promised for next year. His entourage has long hinted he would become president after the return of democratic government, as a guarantee that the reforms he has instituted would be continued. Nor have those reforms been all bad. General Musharraf has made a start at tackling Pakistan's debilitating scourge of corruption, and his efforts to rescue the country from financial ruin have won wide international support. Pakistan moreover seems to be taking a slightly tougher line with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which Islamabad has long been accused of propping up.

That he is now president instead of "chief executive" changes nothing in practice ­ except to give the General greater stature and negotiating authority ahead of next month's keenly awaited summit with India, which both of the sub-continent's rival nuclear powers seem commendably determined should lower the temperature of their dispute over Kashmir ­ the cause of two of the three wars they have fought since 1947.

So much for the excuses. General Musharraf's arrogation of supreme constitutional powers for himself, which sealed his coup of two years ago, renders it absolutely essential that he keeps his promise to hold a full-scale parliamentary election before October 2002. If by the end of next year Pakistan has a prime minister and a government chosen by the will of its long-suffering people, he could one day be remembered as the man who set in motion the remaking of his blighted country. Anything less, and the worst interpretation of this latest trampling of Pakistan's constitution will be correct.