It's acid test day at the pakistan Military Academy, an event dreaded by every student. For nearly two years, the cadets have learned to run a six-minute mile, perform endless rounds of push-ups, climb into a boxing ring to beat up their buddies. The Acid Test is the most grueling exercise of all. The academy is in the Himalayan foothills north of Islamabad, but the weather is still brutal: 35C by midday. First, the cadets have to traverse a mountain carrying logs on their shoulders. Then they run 14.5 kilometers wearing full gear to an obstacle course that forces them to swing over ditches, haul themselves over walls and slosh through an artificial swamp fed by a guy hosing water from a truck. Some recruits complete the course in two-and-a-half hours. Others collapse along the way. Those who reach the finish are allowed five rounds to hit a target at 22 meters beneath an inscription that reads, "Verily the power lies in firepower."

A soldier's attitude toward politics springs from his training days at the academy. All cadets receive lectures on governance. Arts majors take a political science course studying constitutions of six nations and the political theories of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Indian strategist Chanakya, Arab historian Ibn Khaldun and Pakistani poet Muhammad Iqbal. But the average soldier learns more in the mess hall and the boxing ring than from this tutoring in political theory. "Phfft," sniffs Major General Hamid Rab Nawaz, the academy's commandant. "I never studied political science myself."

This is the environment that molded Pakistan's political leader—and that's cause for concern. The Pakistani military considers itself the country's only functioning institution. What it steadfastly fails to admit is that military rule for 28 of the country's 55 years of existence kept the other democratic institutions, such as a parliament and a judiciary, from maturing. Musharraf shares this mind-set, displaying a self-serving indifference to democratic niceties, while also portraying himself grandiosely as the shepherd of "real democracy." In a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., last February, he boasted, "I am more democratic than any government [that] ever existed in Pakistan."

Musharraf bases this claim on the fact that he is allowing elections, ceding power, and personally overhauling the constitution to reduce the clout of untrustworthy politicians. He sees nothing wrong with one man's rewriting the rules of the democratic game and appropriating a prerogative that formerly belonged to a two-thirds majority of an elected National Assembly. "Thank God it has been allowed," he tells TIME. Anyway, he adds, the people gave him a "massive mandate" in a referendum he held on his rule in April. He ignores the criticism that this referendum was merely a democratic charade marred by voting irregularities.

The referendum made Musharraf look insincere and manipulative—much like the military leaders who preceded him. His planned changes to the constitution have deepened that sense of betrayal and have whittled away support among the educated middle class. And there's already a strong whiff of a fix for the Oct. 10 parliamentary elections. A new rule dictates that parties must have unique names, a possible killer blow to Nawaz Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League split into two wings with near-identical names. Another regulation says no one can be Prime Minister three times—both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto have served twice.

No matter who is elected to the National Assembly, they'll find that Musharraf has devised a whole new ball game. He plans to give himself the power to dissolve the assembly or fire the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He'll shorten parliamentarians' terms from five years to four, but not his own. (That way he'll be in power to pull strings between parliaments.) He wants a new constitutional center of power, a National Security Council, which will give all three armed service chiefs a role in government. Musharraf insists his altered constitution will check the abuse of power—by civilian politicians. "How were they governing in these 11 years?" he asks, referring to Bhutto's and Nawaz Sharif's governments. "They were looting and plundering and misgoverning." Responds Ejaz Shafi, a former Pakistan Muslim League solon: "He is no different from any other dictator."

Musharraf hasn't yet made the one constitutional change he'll need if he's to survive under the new system. At the moment, the constitution says he can't hold the army chief's job along with the presidency—but he is widely expected to reverse that restriction. It would be an understandable act of self-preservation, because his power derives not from civilian politics but from the military, and any general who could fill the seat might later be tempted to betray him. After all, even with the backing of his new constitutional powers, Musharraf knows that no individual is a match for an army that can take over a government in half an hour, or for political parties that can bring millions to the streets—a power retained by both Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf has described his constitutional fiddlings as Reform Package No. 1—leading many to believe a second round will be announced at the last minute to allow him to maintain both political and military supremacy. One telling sign: his wife, Sehba, says she isn't planning to pack—she intends to continue living in Army House, the residence of the military's top dog.

But as one-man rule slides to an end, the chorus of Musharraf critics is getting louder. His newfound moderation over Kashmir has particularly enraged hard-liners. "He abandoned Afghanistan, claiming it was necessary to save other Pakistani interests, including Kashmir," rails Farhan Bokhari, a member of the radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. "Now he's abandoning Kashmir, presenting it as yet another necessary loss." As for India, its leaders distrust Musharraf utterly and its battalions remain poised on the border, waiting for an excuse, such as a terrorist attack on Indian soil, to punish Pakistan militarily.

In Pakistan, Musharraf's alliance with Washington has earned him the sneering nickname of "Busharraf." Yet Washington seems eager to distance itself somewhat from the tarnished general, figuring that if he falls off the high wire, a suitable successor will emerge from the military. "There are other people who have high skills and political savvy," says a State Department official, who compares Pakistan to Egypt after Anwar Sadat was assassinated—and replaced by Hosni Mubarak, who has since held power for 21 years. "It doesn't all rest on this one individual."

The old soldier is beginning to show the strain. Musharraf still exercises every evening, briskly striding around the tightly guarded Army House compound. But he's suffering from a bum shoulder. He can't lift his arm—"See?" he says, failing to raise it fully above his head. "That's as far as it goes!" His daily tennis game, played with security guards, stopped a few months ago.

In Army House, Musharraf has hung a plaque with advice to get him through these tough times, an excerpt from the 2,500-year-old Taoist classic Dao De Jing by Chinese sage Laozi:

Asked what kind of leader he is, Musharraf answers instantly, "Loved. A leader is no leader if he is not loved." He continues, "They must follow you because they love you, because they think that you are the greatest. That is what a real test of leadership is." That's how it was when Pervez Musharraf brought his men into action in the past. But in his current battles, Musharraf is going in alone.

—With reporting by Brian Bennett/Lahore, Hannah Bloch/Karachi, Massimo Calabresi/Washington and Ghulam Hasnain/New York City

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