The North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan is known for violence, for radical Islam, for al-Qaeda and not a lot else. Five years ago, a coalition of religious parties won power in this belt of rugged mountainous territory along the Afghan frontier. Many, in Pakistan and abroad, predicted the establishment of a miniature 'Taliban state'. But it did not happen.
Last week the religious hardliners lost heavily in a relatively free and fair election. To the surprise of many, the people of the province, for the moment at least, appeared to have turned away from the hardliners. And in so doing, have shown a different side of this troubled part of the world.
Jason Burke travelled to Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province, and drove through the countryside around it, hoping to find out a little about the hardliners, what was behind their defeat and who had beaten them.
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