Islamabad, Pakistan ? Pervez Musharraf won a vote of confidence Thursday that supporters hailed as the final step on the general’s journey from dictator to democrat. Opponents derided the proceedings — which will keep the Pakistani leader in power as president until 2007 — as a tattered fig-leaf barely obscuring his continued military rule.

The balloting in both houses of parliament and the nation’s four provincial assemblies followed a surprise deal last month with a coalition of hardline Islamic parties that agreed to support Musharraf’s claim to the presidency in return for a promise that he step down as army chief by the end of 2004.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the vote — which Musharraf won easily because of a walkout by several key opposition groups — was an important boost ahead of a regional summit that will bring Pakistani and Indian leaders together for their first face-to-face meetings since relations between the two rivals began to thaw in April. The summit begins Sunday in Islamabad.

Lawmakers from the parties of former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif walked out of proceedings at assemblies throughout the country. Even lawmakers from the Islamic coalition — called the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA — remained on the sidelines, neither supporting nor opposing the general in the confidence vote.

The holdouts made for some strange numbers. The 100-member Senate voted 56-1 in favor of Musharraf, while the 342-member lower house voted 191-0 for the general.

Provincial voting followed the same lines, with the large number of abstentions most notable in the North West Frontier Province, an area bordering Afghanistan where the Islamic coalition holds sway.