As predicted, it's out with the fundamentalist MMA and in with the secular Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. But can the Taliban and al Qaeda-led militancy in the area be rolled back?
Analysts say that challenges facing the new NWFP government would be intimidating, if not insurmountable.
"The new government will be faced with the twin-challenge of reviving NWFP's entertainment industry, and ensuring a successful 'war on terror' as a means of restoring peace in the region," says Zulfiqar Ali, a Peshawar based correspondent who covers the region for Dawn newspaper.
The entertainment industry suffered when the MMA government started a campaign against singers, actors, CD/DVD outlets and the advertising business.
Music and cultural shows were banned, legislation biased against women was introduced, while mobs attacked street musicians and destroyed billboards featuring female models.
Meanwhile, militants launched a prolonged bombing campaign against music stores, throwing most of them out of business.
"The new government, when it takes over power, is expected to lift the ban on cultural shows as one of its first steps," says Dr Fazal Rahim Marwat, a professor of Pakistan Studies at Peshawar University. ...
... Rolling back the militancy may be a problem.
Technically, while the administration in tribal areas draws upon the administrative and manpower resources of the province, it is governed by the centre.
As such, while Pakistani policies of dealing with the militants have a direct bearing on the situation in NWFP, the province has no say in tribal affairs.
ANP chief, Asfandyar Wali, wants that to change.
"We would like to be taken into confidence over the federal government's fight against militants in the region," he said in a post-election comment.
Call for support
But observers in NWFP do not think this likely.
Majority opinion in the region still suspects complicity between militants and Pakistan's security establishment.
Observers point to an army action in South Waziristan last month, that involved the movement of troops and the aerial bombing of militants' hideouts.
But just when some people expected a final liquidation of the militants in the area, an unannounced ceasefire came into effect and is still holding.
Dr Marwat says that a final blow to the militants can only come from the powers that created and sustained them.
He describes these powers as "elements within the federal government, and those foreign powers that have had an interest in promoting Sunni extremists in this region".
"If these powers provide the region with political and economic support, the new NWFP government would certainly be willing to provide the atmosphere," he says.