The BBC's Barbara Plett reports on signs of "mullah fatigue" in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province in these parliamentary elections. However, there are also those Islamists who prefer bullets to ballots.
Five years ago, Islamist parties rode to victory on a wave of opposition to America's invasion of Afghanistan.
They swept the board in Mardan, capturing power in this province and sharing it in another. Now they're defending their record.
"They were saying that these clerics can't rule," says Shujaul Mulk, a JUI Member of Parliament from Mardan, "but we have shown how we can run the government. There was fiscal discipline, and we also did a lot to try and enforce Sharia."
Despite such confidence, it looks as if this time the Islamists will be routed.
Protest vote
The Islamic parties fought the last elections as an alliance, but they have been weakened by a split in their ranks.
Some are urging their supporters to boycott the vote, they argue the process is flawed and polls will be rigged.
Voters are also fed up with the mullahs' performance.
"They had a government in this province for the past five years, but weren't able to complete development activities," said one man in Mardan's market.
"They took the vote in the name of Allah, but they didn't do anything," said another. "If they and other parties are the same, why are they taking the name of Islam?"
The Awami National Party (ANP), a Pashtun nationalist movement opposed to Islamists, is expecting to pick up the protest vote. So is the secular Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP).
Taleban opposition
But there's also another Islamist force, which favours violence over the ballot box.
Recently men filed silently through a graveyard close to Mardan, to bury a 17-year-old boy.
Fahim Jan died in a bomb explosion at an ANP rally, along with 29 other people. It's not clear who did this, but pro-Taleban militants are suspects.
Over the last year they have spread their fight from the Afghan border throughout NWFP.
They target the army and the government, they oppose Islamic parties, and impose their own strict version of Islamic law.
Fahim's father, Fayez Muhammed Khan, insists he'll keep sending his sons to ANP meetings, even if they get killed.
The ANP continues its rallies under heavy guard, supporters waving their red flags and sporting the party's flat red caps.
Vicious cycle
But more than steadfastness is needed to defeat Islamic militancy.
"We are going towards a total fiasco, like what happened in Iraq," says Khwaja Muhammed Khan Hoti, an ANP candidate in Mardan.
And that means you can't refuse to deal with the militants.
"We must sit with [the Taleban], we must talk to them, we are from the same origin, we are from the same people, we've got the same language."