Hookahs, Horses, Eggplants: Party Logos Matter More Than Usual in Pakistan Polls

Imran Khan & his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's troubles were larger than picking a logo. They had to pick over 200.

A political party's main identifier after their name and their leaders is their logo, as is the case for the upcoming Pakistan General Election on 8 February. 

(Photo: Namita Chauhan/The Quint)

A political party's main identifier after their name and their leaders is their logo, as is the case for the upcoming Pakistan General Election on 8 February. However, for the South Asian country's 241 million citizens, a party's symbol holds much more weight than in a regular election, especially this time around.

Pakistan's electoral procedure has thousands of candidates and multiple political parties, each represented by distinct symbols. Reports say that for the 2024 election, political parties have been allocated 150 symbols, while independent candidates will receive another 174 symbols.

Three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) is represented by a tiger and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of slain premier Benazir Bhutto, and his Pakistan People's Party uses an arrow.

However, for former PM and cricket captain Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, matters are not so simple.

Not only is the party entering the ever-so important polls without their widely-recognised 'Cricket Bat' logo, symbolic of their chief's cricket career, but all of its 200 candidates have been assigned separate logos - from ironing boards and bowls to chickens and donkey carts.

Why Did PTI Lose the Cricket Bat Symbol?

In December, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) withdrew the electoral symbol of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) citing a failure to conduct mandatory intra-party elections, a prerequisite for participating in the 8 February vote. An intra-party election that the PTI did conduct on 8 June, 2022 was not recognised after the ECP claimed that it was not “just and fair”. Moreover, the party was also prohibited from choosing any alternative electoral unified symbol for the party.

Challenging this decision in the Supreme Court, the PTI faced a setback with the court's 13 January ruling.

Efforts to overturn the ban proved unsuccessful, as in a significant setback for the PTI, the Supreme Court upheld the ECP's decision and essentially meant that the logo which was most widely associated with Imran Khan’s cricket career, a bat, was no longer associated with the party.

Apart from legal challenges and the loss of their original logo , the PTI being without a single, unified electoral symbol introduces confusion for PTI voters and adds extra expenses for producing separate campaign materials, such as banners, for each candidate.

“A symbol is only needed for the election process and polling day. Symbols are not assigned to you, you ask for a symbol and to get it you have to follow due process. Since the PTI did not follow the rules laid down by the ECP, their logo was taken away from them.”

Gul Bukhari

“They are really going to suffer badly, they have gone out and stuck themselves on the foot. It will have several negative connotations for the PTI come polling day," Gul Bukhari further said.

This situation Furthermore, the PTI has temporarily lost its registered status with the ECP, impacting its eligibility for reserved seats, including 70 seats for women and religious minorities in the National Assembly. These reserved seats are allocated based on a party's electoral success, providing an additional advantage in parliament.

'PTI Will Face Negative Connotations on Polling Day'

Several critics have called the decision “politically motivated” and a senior member of the PTI, who spoke to The Quint requesting anonymity, said, “This is another addition to the methods they are using to deny us a victory in the elections. They have arrested our chief, blocked our telephone lines and now, denied our election symbol.”

But the party is “determined” to “innovate” through the troubles they’re facing through the election process. One of the party’s social media coordinators told The Quint, ”We have put a database with every symbol and constituency number to help people search for, and identify, their candidates.”

Herein crept another issue.

Given Imran Khan’s popularity as the Pakistan cricket team’s former skipper and that close to 40 percent of Pakistan's population lacks formal education, voters who are unable to read heavily depend on symbols to identify their preferred party on the ballot.

“In a region where a large chunk of your population is not literate and cannot read a candidate’s or party’s name, a single, unified symbol makes sure that your voter doesn’t feel disenfranchised," Pakistani journalist and rights activist Gul Bukhari told The Quint.

Even among those who can read names, there is a significant reliance on party symbols.

The ban not only hampers PTI's visibility but also effectively prevents the party from participating as a whole, forcing its candidates to run as independents, using a variety of symbols, including roller coasters, goats, dice, and coins. It also means confusion for voters and also additional cost to produce individual campaign material for every candidate.

A PTI coordinator told The Quint, “To insult some of our people and to make our outreach tougher, we have been given election symbols that are very hard to explain and some are disrespectful to our candidates.”

The coordinator spoke of Aamir Mughal, a PTI candidate from Islamabad, who was assigned the Baigan (Eggplant) as an election symbol and says that not only is the symbol “out of place regardless of its key place in Pakistani cuisine” but added that it presents “obvious symbolic references to male anatomy in an attempt to ridicule the party.”

Some candidates received symbols like a horse, cow, a “bunch of grapes” and a calculator. But that is not all. In one particular case in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Shehryar Afridi received the symbol of a bottle.

“In local Pashto language, calling someone a bottle implies that they are an empty vessel without any thoughts. It also brings ideas about drinking alcohol in KPK, where conservative Islam is a way of life.”

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf coordinator speaking to The Quint

Facing the loss of the 'bat' symbol, the PTI attempted to form an alliance with its splinter group, PTI-Nazriati, aiming to adopt the 'batsman' symbol for its candidates – the closest alternative to their first choice. However, the ECP intervened in a matter of hours, prohibiting returning officers from assigning a party's election symbols to candidates from another party

Another concern post the 'bat' symbol loss is potential horse-trading, a recurring issue in Pakistani politics, often seen during close votes in the National or provincial assemblies.

The PTI's ability to control its members in the upcoming assemblies is also weakened as the defection clause of Pakistan’s constitution may not be applicable.

Moreover, Gul Bukhari told The Quint:

“Even if these members maintain loyalty and refrain from joining any other party within three days of their victory notification, they will still be regarded as independents throughout the entire five-year tenure of the assemblies.”

Moreover, a PTI worker in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province told The Quint that the practice of competitors strategically nominating candidates with similar names and symbols to intentionally confuse potential supporters is common practice in the polls and has become more prevalent this time around.

The unavailability of the party's recognised symbol also poses challenges for the PTI in mobilizing voters. Khan's expertise has always remained his branding and connection to his "awaam" (people). Under his leadership, the party has made significant investments in its symbol, using songs, slogans, and imagery to establish its identity.

Not a First For Pakistan: Parallels With the PPP

The current predicament faced by the PTI is not unprecedented, drawing parallels with the challenges encountered by the PPP in the late 1970s. During that period, the symbols of the 'sword,' 'plough,' and 'scales' were expunged from the list of designated election symbols by the former military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq following the 1977 general election.

The 'sword' had been the election symbol of the PPP, led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, while the 'plough' symbolized an amalgamation of politico-religious parties known as the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). Notably, the Jamaat-i-Islami, a participant in the PNA during 1977, had utilised the 'scales' as its election symbol in the 1970 polls.

Analysts perceived the removal of the 'sword' as the primary objective, with other symbols eliminated for a semblance of balance and to demonstrate impartiality. Subsequent to losing the 'sword,' the PPP adopted the 'arrow' as its electoral symbol, a choice it has adhered to ever since.

In August 2002, responding to a decree by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, the PPP established a distinct entity, PPP-Parliamentarians (PPPP). This move aimed to comply with a law preventing former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from holding a party office, thus averting the imminent risk of being disqualified from contesting elections.

During the 2013 elections, the party participated under the PPPP platform, utilizing the arrow symbol, while the PPP was assigned the symbol 'two swords'. In 2018, after a span of 41 years, the PPP managed to reclaim the 'sword' as its election symbol.

However, this strategic move was primarily to prevent any rival from acquiring the symbol. As the upcoming polls approach, the PPP intends to contest under the 'arrow' electoral symbol, maintaining continuity in its symbol of choice.

Meanwhile, even though not always associated with their current logo, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party is using the Tiger as their logo.

The party used the bicycle as its emblem since it was preceded by the right-wing alliance of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI). But since the party was unable to use the bicycle logo, one that represented the alliance's alignment to the common man, after the IJI dissolved, it began using the tiger, along with images of lions, for their campaigns.

In the past, the party went as far as to bring a white tiger, along with other caged lions and tigers, to several public rallies and gatherings.

While the white tiger died in Lahore's heat in 2013, the use of the symbol and the PML(N)'s actions earned Nawaz the title of "Sher (lion) of Punjab."

The PML-N faced a situation reminiscent of the PTI's in 2017, when its tiger symbol was temporarily disqualified due to its inability to appoint a new party leader following Nawaz Sharif's removal as PM in the wake of the Panama Papers controversy. However, the decision was reversed after the PML-N successfully elected a new party head.