President Pervez Musharraf is holding onto the power he snatched in a 1999 coup because Pakistan is still not ready for democracy, he said in an interview carried.
"I am in favour of democracy very much," the army chief-cum-self declared president said in an interview picked up by Pakistani newspapers from the United Arab Emirates' Gulf News daily.
"But I have a belief that democracy has to be modified to an environment, to the Pakistani environment; that is the reason of my retaining the power of dismissing an assembly."
General Musharraf is under fire from opposition parties for awarding himself power to sack the elected parliament and giving the military a political role last August, in the final months of his three-year military rule.
Opposition legislators, elected in October in the first parliamentary polls to follow Musharraf's coup, are in the throes of a relentless campaign to make him quit the presidency and his simultaneous position as army chief.
They are outraged that a military figure is still heading the government despite the official restoration of democracy.
The polls were meant to bring an end to his military rule, which was instituted when Musharraf led an army coup. Musharraf is the fourth general to rule Pakistan, which has been under army control for 27 of its 56 years.
Musharraf has repeatedly described the 11 years of civilian rule that preceded his coup as "sham democracy" and accused former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto of looting and ruining Pakistan.
He has also been criticising opposition lawmakers for their rowdy protests against him in the parliament, which has been virtually paralysed all year and passed no legislation.
"Our democracy is not mature ... and I think many politicians do not behave in a mature manner," Musharraf told Gulf News.
"Generally the way politics has been run here in Pakistan ... I don't think it's very much to emulate.
"My dislike for politicians is not universal. I wouldn't say that. But we need to have a better democracy and better politics."
He said he approached politics in a military manner.
"I don't think I fit into the political role ... I am absolutely a military man. Whatever politics I do, I do it in a military manner."
Musharraf said he would stay in his dual position as army chief and president until democracy arrived.
"I am holding it until the establishment of democracy.
"Therefore I will continue in uniform,
but once these institutions come and start playing their role, this separation
of uniform and presidency must be ensured and I will do it."