For a man so seemingly intent on turning back time, there could be no better symbol than the one that Maulavi Qalamuddin has chosen for his campaign for Parliament: a clock.

Once, as the chief of the Department for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, Mr. Qalamuddin, a Muslim cleric, was the notorious face of Taliban-era moral policing. It was his men who cruised through town ordering the floggings of women who did not cover themselves from head to toe, or of men who dared shave their beards.