IN a sense, I have been writing this article in my head for well over a year. At the height of the lawyers` movement to restore the suspended chief justice last summer, I was asked on BBC World how long Musharraf could stay on. I replied that he would be gone by the end of the year.

While I was out by eight months, I think it`s fair to say that after the elections in February, he had been politically wounded to the point of irrelevance.Over the last couple of weeks leading up to his resignation, the media has been full of charges against him. Some are undoubtedly true, while others have little evidence to support them. Being an illegitimate ruler, his trampling over the constitution can hardly be denied or defended. But over his nine years in power, he did some good, and as the euphoria surrounding his departure evaporates, it would be useful to make a few credit entries in the balance sheet of the Musharraf era.

To be absolutely honest, I initially welcomed his coup in Oct 1999. While I had few illusions about military rule, I feared what was looming on the horizon even more. Readers might recall that at the time, Nawaz Sharif was poised to ram the Fifteenth Amendment through. He was sure to get the Senate majority necessary for this amendment in March 2000.

Had he succeeded, the existing civil code would have been replaced by the Sharia, and Nawaz Sharif would have been declared the Amir-ul-Momineen, or Commander of the Faithful, an archaic caliphate-era title that would have given him absolute power. And as we know to our cost, once such retrogressive laws are enacted, they can never be repealed.

So, yes, I remain unashamed of welcoming the coup, as the army was the only power that could have blocked the Fifteenth Amendment. And frankly, the image of Musharraf standing with a pet dog in his arms, photographed with his wife and sari-clad mother was a reassuring one.

The admiration he expressed for the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, further reinforced our perception of a secular soldier who might live up to his early promise to roll back the medieval forces that threatened to drag us back to the dark ages.

Alas, this ill-placed optimism proved to be a triumph of hope over experience. As he began enjoying the limelight and consolidated his hold on power, Musharraf started leaning on the same reactionary forces his military predecessors had. The mullahs were delighted to continue their old symbiotic relationship with the army. They supported his bid for legitimacy, and in exchange, he made sure they formed the governments in NWFP and Balochistan after the rigged elections of 2002.

However, he did raise the number of reserved seats for women in parliament, and partly undid some of the evil of Zia`s Hudood Ordinances. Although many of us complained that his reforms did not go nearly far enough, the fact remains that even such small steps upset his conservative political allies, and were difficult for him to push through. And although he had brought Pakistan to the brink of war at Kargil in 1999, he did ultimately improve relations with our neighbour with a succession of moves designed to break the deadlock.

A fact many do not realise is that even dictators do not enjoy absolute power. Musharraf had to take his corps commanders with him on major issues. And once he had cobbled together his King`s Party, he had to deal with fundamentalist fellow-travellers like Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Ijazul Haq. Having sidelined and consistently badmouthed mainstream leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and determined to hang on, he depended more and more on a narrow, reactionary constituency.

The extent of his isolation became evident when he held his famous referendum. Although less than five per cent of the electorate actually voted, the government claimed a massive turnout. When I asked a close advisor why he had not tried to put a stop to the farce, he replied `You have no idea how thick the group of generals close to Musharraf are. And he listens to them on all important matters, even though they have no clue what they are talking about.` Musharraf, like so many autocrats, listened only to the advice he wanted to hear.

Musharraf really came into his own after 9/11. Suddenly, he was transformed from yet another tin pot dictator of yet another benighted banana republic into a crucial ally in the freshly-minted `war on terror`. From being an international pariah Bill Clinton refused to shake hands with publicly, he was being courted and toasted by major world leaders.

Although he has been widely criticised in Pakistan for having executed his famous u-turn, the fact is that most leaders would have done the same in his place. True, others might have held out for a better deal, but it is unlikely that they would have tried to resist the demands of a wounded and angry United States in the wake of the attacks o n New York and Washington.

It is also a fact that under him, the stock market performed very well, and there was an improvement in the country`s economy. If this did not translate into a rise in the standard of living for the average Pakistani, we should remember that unelected dictators are not answerable to the electorate.

However, as soon as they were allowed to, the people of Pakistan voted against him and everything he stood for. But again, he should be given some credit for overseeing reasonably fair elections. Of course, he did so largely because he had been assured by the Chaudhries of Gujrat that their PML-Q was comfortably placed, and would be able to form a coalition to support him in his second term. The fact that he chose to accept their projections rather than the more realistic ones prepared by his intelligence agencies will probably haunt him for years to come.

Looking back over the last nine years, I think if I were to pick his biggest crime against the people of Pakistan, it would be his failure to protect Benazir Bhutto. Whatever her many shortcomings, she was the one Pakistani leader who was even remotely capable of leading the country out of the mess it is in today. His sinister words to her, quoted in a recent American book, will do as his political epitaph `Your security depends on the kind of working relationship we have.`