In a normal election, Faisal Sabzwari would be busy on the campaign trail, giving speeches at large rallies, glad-handing voters in his constituency and cruising through neighborhoods in a cavalcade of cars festooned with his party's flags. But with polling day just three weeks away on May 11, the parliamentary candidate from the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) is doing his best to keep a low profile. "I'm abstaining from major rallies," says Sabzwari. "I've curtailed my physical presence. I'm not appearing everywhere." Law-enforcement and intelligence agencies have told the MQM that Sabzwari and a dozen other members of the party are named on the Pakistani Taliban's hit list. "I've also received threatening phone calls on my mobile." He has reason to be worried. On April 10, Fakhrul Islam, an MQM candidate in Hyderabad, in the province of Sindh, was gunned down in an attack claimed by the Taliban. The next day, another MQM member, S.M. Shiraz, was gunned down in Karachi. "Since then, our party workers are being killed almost daily," says Sabzwari. For Pakistan's avowedly secular and anti-Taliban political parties, the biggest challenge is not persuading voters of their worth, but staying alive. Before the current election season got under way, the Pakistani Taliban announced that they would attack politicians from the MQM, the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and warned voters to stay away from their rallies. In recent weeks, the militants have mounted a series of vicious attacks on candidates, their supporters and their party offices. As members of the outgoing ruling coalition, the three parties already faced an uphill task of defending a dismal record in government. In particular, the ANP and the PPP are the targets of a strong feeling of anti-incumbency as some of their leading candidates face widespread accusations of poor governance and corruption. But members of the three parties say that the attacks deny them a level playing field and reduce national campaigns to small door-to-door neighborhood efforts. At the same time, rival Islamist and right-wing(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=83509&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)
Via: TIME GlobalSpin