Afghanistan faces a presidential election next month but few believe the vote will take place as the United States and the Taliban inch closer to a deal that could end the nearly 18-year war but bring uncertainty about almost everything else.
Few candidates 18 are running for the country's top job have openly campaigned after the Taliban last week attacked the office of President Ashraf Ghani's running mate on opening day of the campaign, killing at least 20 people.
Amrullah Saleh, known for his fierce anti-Taliban stance, was unharmed.
This week, the Taliban declared the election a "sham" and warned fellow Afghans to stay away from campaign rallies and from the polls, saying such gatherings could be targeted.
A day later, a Taliban car bomb aimed at Afghan security forces ripped through a Kabul neighborhood, killing 14 people and wounding 145 most of them women, children and other civilians.
The developments came even as the Taliban and a US envoy tasked with finding a peaceful resolution to the war in Afghanistan America's longest conflict reported progress on negotiations in Qatar on an agreement for the withdrawal of some 20,000 US and NATO troops, along with Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan would not be a base for other extremist groups.
The Taliban spokesman in Qatar, Suhail Shaheen, told The Associated Press on Friday that he expects an agreement "at the end of this round of talks."
Scott Worden, director of the Afghanistan program at the United States Institute of Peace, wrote last week that the choice in the peace process is between "pursuing a negotiated solution with the Taliban that would lead to a new system that the Taliban agree to participate in, or seeking to renew the current government's legitimacy through elections and having the new government negotiate from what it hopes will be a position of greater strength."