“I may be a military man, but I am not a dictator,” he said in an interview to the French daily Le Figaro.

Musharraf, who stepped down as Army Chief in November last year, said democracy would return to Pakistan, but at its own pace. “The West cannot impose its way of thinking,” he said, claiming that he did more in six years to advance democracy than his predecessors did in 50 years. About his popularity, he acknowledged that it had dropped, but added: “I am not unpopular.”

“I know very well what is the support that I have from the masses, the elite and the army. The day I think that I am genuinely unpopular, I will be the first to resign,” he was quoted as saying by the APP news agency.