LAHORE, Pakistan — For years, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, one of the most-wanted militant leaders in South Asia, has lived in the open in Pakistan despite a $10 million American bounty on his head. He has mocked efforts by the United States to capture him and led large public gatherings in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city.

Now he is trying something even more brazen: In recent weeks, he has become the face of a new political party campaigning to win the seat of a former prime minister in the National Assembly.

Last month, the Islamist charity that Mr. Saeed founded — Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is widely accused of being a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group that waged the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks and is on the United Nations list of global terrorist groups — announced that it was starting the Milli Muslim League political party.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has forbidden the display of Mr. Saeed’s picture on election posters, but despite these clear orders, the constituency in Lahore is covered with posters showing Mr. Saeed, his visage side by side with the official candidate, Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh, a senior Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader.