On the streets of Peshawar, it is clear that the contest in the Frontier’s capital is between the PPP and the ANP. The outgoing six-party religious alliance, the MMA, stands discredited for the past five years of misrule, in which emphasis was placed only on enforcing Islamic law. The promise was stolen by the Supreme Court which held that the Sharia Bill passed by the Frontier legislature contravened the Constitution.

The Frontier is largely a two-language province. Pathans form the majority but many districts, as also Peshawar city, have a Hindko-speaking majority, the cousins of Punjabis. In the Hindko districts, the ANP has little appeal and the real contest is between the Sharifs’ League and the PPP. Parts of the Pashto-speaking districts are fractured by divisions between two factions of the PPP, with the breakaway Sherpao faction having been part of the last ruling coalition. With the mullahs largely out of the fray, the ANP is set to emerge victorious in such areas. In the southern Frontier, Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s JUI will retain some of the seats in his native district if he is able to arrest the swelling sympathy for Bhutto’s party.

The northwest of the Frontier comprises the snowbound Chitral valley, where the Khwar-speaking majority practises Ismaili faith. This has traditionally been a PPP constituency, with the Afghan settlers having upset the apple cart in the last election, but who have since returned to Afghanistan. The district of Swat is the scene of an insurgency led by the fanatic Mullah Fazlullah and backed by local smugglers; fierce fighting and imposition of curfew there over the past few months make low voter turnout and violence likely — that is, if elections are held there at all. The erstwhile tourist haven generally belongs to the ruling Muslim League, owing to Ayub Khan’s son’s matrimonial ties there.

... contd.