Brief history of withdrawn election symbols

LAHORE: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday withdrew the election symbol of ‘cricket bat’ from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) due to the embattled entity’s allegedly flawed intra-party polls, creating a stir in the country’s highly-polarized political environment and igniting fiery debates on social media platforms.

Pakistani political parties, for decades, have been building their entire persona, facades and electoral campaigns around their alluring symbols. These attractive symbols are then traditionally woven into all election campaign material like posters, pamphlets, songs, party anthems and TV ads. For example, cricketer Imran Khan chose the ‘cricket bat’ as his election symbol to appeal to his loyalists and voters.

Similarly, nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan opted for a “missile” as his symbol when he established his political party. A large model of his electoral symbol was also put on display near Karachi’s International Airport as part of his message to his followers.

But this is not the first time a leading Pakistani political party has been stripped of its traditional election symbol. On May 29, 2018, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) succeeded in clinching ‘sword’ as its election symbol following 41 long years of legal battle.

In 2018, there were four contenders for the symbol of sword — the PPP, the PPP-Workers led by Safdar Abbasi, the PPP-Shaheed Bhutto headed by Ghinva Bhutto and the Peoples Movement of Pakistan led by Dr Tanvir Zamani.

The PPP, led by its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had contested the 1970 and 1977 elections with the symbol of sword. This symbol was deleted from the Election Commission list during the days of former military ruler Gen Ziaul Haq after the 1977 polls and then restored in 2013.

PPP had won 1988 polls after change in symbol. It also formed govts in 1993 and 2008 elections with changed symbol of arrow. It shows change or withdrawal of election symbol does not necessarily affect electoral prospects of any party if it has potent and deep-rooted support of masses.

Two other symbols — the plough and scales — were also delisted in 1977. The PPP had contested the 2018 general elections on the symbol of arrow under the banner of an alliance between the PPP led by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and PPP-Parliamentarians (PPP-P) headed by former president Asif Ali Zardari. The PPP contested the 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1997 elections with the symbol of arrow. In 1977, a plough was the symbol of the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), an alliance of nine political parties, which ran a political campaign against the PPP. In 2018, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) withdrew from its traditional symbol of cycle and sought tractor as its election symbol.

Another contender for the symbol of tractor was the Pakistan Kissan Party, which had pleaded in vain that the symbol was in line with its name and manifesto.

Another dispute was over the symbol of saw between Mir Hasil Bizenjo’s National Party and Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch’s Balochistan National Movement. The symbol was allotted to the Balochistan National Movement and they contested the last elections with that symbol.

The Awami League and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaniat disputed over the symbol of hockey, though the former’s request was honoured. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaniat was instead given the symbol of comb.

In its May 30, 2018 edition, an English daily had reported: “The Muttahida Qaumi Party was allotted the symbol of turban and the Awami League was allocated the symbol of human hand. When the Chief Election Commissioner, Justice (retd) Sardar Muhammad Raza, and other members of the commission were about to leave, Dr Farooq Sattar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-PIB Colony and Amir Khan of the MQM-Bahadurabad sought the election symbol for MQM. The CEC said the commission had allotted the symbol of kite to the MQM.”