Mian Hussain is fighting for his political life from a deserted party headquarters, where two telephones sit silently beside him and the footsteps of a tea boy echo down the corridor.
One of Pakistan's most high-profile anti-Taliban politicians, Hussain hasn't been to a single public event since campaigning for the May 11 election kicked off. A fiery orator who once electrified big rallies, he now makes short speeches by telephone to small huddles of supporters meeting in secret.
For the spokesman of the Awami National Party (ANP), it's just too dangerous to go out, reported Reuters.
Since April, the Pakistani Taliban have killed more than 70 people in attacks targeting three major political parties, preventing many of their most prominent candidates from openly campaigning.
Hussain worries the Taliban want to rig the elections in favor of parties that will take a softer line with their determination to stamp a radical brand of Islam on the country.
He says that is why the Taliban are targeting the ruling coalition that backed military operations against them - Hussain's ANP, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), whose offices have been repeatedly bombed.
The ANP has borne the brunt of the attacks because it is staunchly opposed to the Taliban. As a nationalist party, it competes with the militants for the support of ethnic minority Pashtun people along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The PPP and the MQM see themselves as liberal parties, long opposed to the influence of conservative religious forces and Islamist militancy.
The Taliban say they are targeting “secular” parties and that elections only “serve the interests of infidels and enemies of Islam”.
However, they have not attacked right-wing religious parties that have joined the election race, or former cricketer Imran Khan's party, which advocates shooting down US drones and withdrawing the Pakistani military from insurgency-infested Pashtun areas along the Afghan border.
A blast at a rally organised by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam religious party on Monday killed 15 people though it was not clear who was responsible.
Nor have the Taliban attacked the main opposition party led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which has courted support from groups accused of supporting sectarian attacks across the country.
“It's pre-poll rigging,” Hussain says bitterly. The Taliban killed his only son three years ago, just before his wedding. The next day, militants attacked Hussain's home, killing seven.
“They will either have to elect the terrorists or elect those who oppose the terrorists,” he said, the studious face of his dead son staring up from campaign posters on a nearby table.
