Symbols matter in Pakistan politics

ALMOST TIME: Campaign posters hang along a main road in Rawalpindi.

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Keywords: PML-N, MMA

Peshawar: Athlas Khan says he wants to vote for people who are honest in Pakistan's upcoming general elections.

Sporting a warm smile from under his turban, the elderly rickshaw driver adds that he wants to vote for those who are working for Allah and Prophet Mohammad.

"They are the book people," he says, while he is waiting for passengers in Malakrao, a suburb of Peshawar.

For Khan, the book people are not just a figure of speech. The party he supports, the religious alliance Mutthida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) carries the book as an election symbol.

Khan is not the only one who votes for a symbol, says Faizullah Jan, a lecturer of mass communication at Peshawar University.

Symbols are one of the primary elements people vote for, says lecturer Jan, who is unrelated to the rickshaw driver. Candidates' personalities and the political parties' platforms also are key factors to woo voters.

"The voters do not know the parties by their names, but by their symbols," says Jan, citing illiteracy as a reason.

Mohammad Sadiq, a 20-year-old farmer, underscores this. "I belong to the football," he says, when asked what party he will vote for. An independent candidate formerly affiliated with the MMA uses the symbol of the football. "I like the lantern also, but the leaders in my family said I have to vote for the football."

Tossing for the crescent

Voters need election symbols, says Iftikhar Shah, the Deputy Secretary of Pakistan's Election Commission. The literacy rate in Pakistan is about 54 per cent, according to government figures.

"It is done for the illiterate people. They cannot read, but they can see the ... the tiger, they can see the elephant." The streets of Pakistan's cities are littered with symbols on posters, hats, walls and cars.

Pakistan's Election Commission allots symbols to the political parties, Shah says. The parties get the symbols they had in the last elections. Lots are drawn to decide between parties wanting the same symbol.

There are 146 symbols, according to the Election Commission; political parties carry 47, while independent candidates possess the rest.