What the election results mean

Journalist Ahmed Rashid analyzes the results of the elections in Pakistan and the subsequent jockeying between parties to form a government. The new alliances at the provincial level between the PPP and various regional players are worth noting, especially the one with the ANP in the NWFP:

In the North Western Frontier Province that has been torn apart by civil war, the majority of seats have been won by a PPP ally, the Awami National Party (ANP).

The ANP has perhaps some of the most seasoned and battle-hardened politicians in the country - a pedigree that goes back to the 1930s.

It has tried, despite blockages put up by Mr Musharraf, to foster a more modern and moderate image of Pashtun nationalism than the one put up by the Pakistani Taleban and al-Qaeda. Now it will have every chance of success.

See full article on BBC site.
This secular ANP is the same as the old NAP of Bacha Khan (Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the "Frontier Gandhi"). They have won this election in NWFP on the promise of better governance than the religious coalition MMA.
While the U.S. punditocracy is focused monomaniacally on whether the new Pakistan government will be less willing than Musharraf to continue the war on terror (a ridiculous proposition -- the specter of Jihadi terrorism threatens everyone in Pakistan), we seem less interested in what it is that these people actually want. It seems the answer is: the same that we want: clean water and electricity.