Islamic fundamentalists lose big in Pakistan vote

Free Republic - Pakistani voters handed Islamist political parties a massive defeat Monday, virtually eliminating them from regional parliaments in an election that's likely to have a wide-ranging impact on efforts to rein in growing Taliban and al Qaida influence in Pakistan's North West Frontier province.
In 2002, fundamentalist religious parties, some openly sympathetic to the Taliban, won 12 percent of the national vote. That was enough to form a regional government in the North West Frontier province, which borders Afghanistan , become part of the ruling coalition in Baluchistan, another conservative province, and hold 57 seats in the 342-member national parliament.
But unofficial results of Monday's vote indicate that religious parties won only five seats in the national parliament this time. In North West Frontier province, where the country's Islamic insurgency is strongest, religious parties won just nine seats in the 96-seat provincial assembly. In 2002, they won 67.