Yet over the past nine months, Musharraf’s dictatorial bent has eroded his standing within Pakistan. The January crackdown infuriated the military’s former allies in the Islamist movement, as did his more recent decision to block insurgents from crossing into India’s half of Kashmir. He has consistently refused calls from moderate politicians to share power: despite claims that 97 percent of Pakistani voters approved an April referendum extending his presidential term for five more years, most independent poll watchers–indeed, most Pakistanis–believe the turnout was a paltry 15 to 20 percent, and the vote itself rigged. “He has isolated himself by refusing to compromise with Pakistan’s mainstream political groups,” says Husain Haqqani, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Now Musharraf is set to lose the few friends he has left in the Pakistani establishment. Last week he announced a series of constitutional amendments that are intended to tighten his stranglehold on power before October elections mandated by the Supreme Court. If approved by his military-dominated cabinet after a month of public debate, only university graduates will be eligible to run for national and provincial Assembly seats, thus excluding the 95 percent of the population without a degree. Musharraf will have the power to appoint and sack the prime minister and to dissolve the National Assembly. The new laws also provide for a military-laden National Security Council, chaired by the president, with sweeping powers to formulate national-security policy as well as to recommend the dissolution of the prime minister’s cabinet. As a result, the new prime minister, his cabinet and the National Assembly will be virtually powerless. “I have a fearful hunch he is going in the wrong direction,” says retired Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, the former Army chief who, rather than assuming power, organized the democratic elections won by Benazir Bhutto three months after dictator Zia ul-Haq’s death. “The best service Musharraf can perform for Pakistan is to hold free and fair elections and ensure that power is transferred to those who get elected.”

That seems increasingly unlikely. “Unless there is unity of command, unless there is one man in charge on top, [the government] will never function,” Musharraf declared recently. He has angered politicians by refusing to talk to Bhutto, who still is arguably the country’s most popular politician despite the fact that there are several corruption cases pending against her and her husband (both deny the charges). Nor has he taken opposition politicians inside the country seriously, treating them more like low-ranking soldiers. When Musharraf asked political parties to enter talks with him earlier this year, “it was not an invitation to a consultation but a summons for a briefing by the big boss,” says Nawabzda Nasrullah Khan, the chairman of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, an umbrella group of opposition parties.

His imperious tactics may ultimately weaken rather than strengthen Musharraf’s position. Every other Pakistani military dictator had top political personalities or a strong political organization supporting his martial-law regime. Musharraf has neither. His attempt to transform a breakaway faction of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League into his own party seems to have failed. The right-wing religious parties that supported Zia’s dictatorship oppose Musharraf because of his split with the Taliban and his close cooperation with the United States. Members of moderate parties like Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party that have strong voter appeal are angry because he will not give them power commensurate with their political clout. As a result, Musharraf has unwittingly created an unprecedented alliance of liberal, centrist and right-wing religious parties against him. While the parties took a decidedly anti-Indian stand in the recent confrontation over Kashmir, they did not rally behind Musharraf. And the right-wing religious parties–one of which has called on the military to overthrow him–now have no incentive to curb extremism in their ranks.

Politicians, indeed most Pakistanis, are now more focused on Musharraf’s vaulting ambitions and his tight rein on power than on helping him–or Washington–win the war on terror. “He should have won the mainstream political parties over to his side,” says retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. “You can’t face adversaries like India and Al Qaeda without having full political support.” Ordinary Pakistanis are not yet calling for Musharraf’s ouster. Many simply feel that he should recognize that he cannot govern Pakistan without the participation of its strongest political forces. But their tolerance is shrinking to dangerous levels: a May poll of urban households found that his approval rating had dropped to 33 percent. “If he goes ahead and tries to run a one-man show for five more years, he’s going to face serious problems,” says Masood.

What worries Pakistanis most is the prospect that the October election will be rejected by the country’s political parties. “An election that is seen as being rigged like the referendum will only further unify the opposition against Musharraf across all segments of society,” says Samina Ahmed, who heads the International Crisis Group in Islamabad. That could bring large crowds of protesters into the streets, a turn of events that would make the military very nervous. “If the public starts to say that the military is letting us down, then the generals may say to Musharraf, ‘Excuse me, sir, we are getting very unpopular and this is not right’,” says Haqqani. Musharraf may be setting himself up for a showdown he cannot win–and the country cannot afford.