Visualising Elections
64 countries go the polls this year representing 49% of the
world population. The big boys – USA, Canada UK, Germany and Russia are gearing
up. It is also election year for Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Indonesia, for Iran, Turkey, Jordan Syria, for South Africa, Taiwan and both
North and South Korea. Analysts call it
not just an election year but the election year.
Democracy, developed to break the power of noble families, is
one of the most tenacious concepts to come out of Ancient Greece. The earliest elections around 500 BC were not
to vote in people but to decide who should be exiled for ten years. Voters
wrote their choice on broken pieces of pots, ostraka, from which the word ostracize
comes. While it evolved into a system of selection rather than rejection,
voting has had a chequered history. Roman elections could be violent with gangs
intimidating voters, and even buying votes.
Ballot papers made their appearance in Rome in 139 BC. Palm
leaves were used in 10th C India to select village committee members.
Almost a thousand years later voting by ballot arrived in England and then
America, as democracy replaced kingship.
Today the secret ballot paper is an essential element of elections. Ballot
papers evolved from highly ornamental sheets to the plain format of today.
While ballot papers in most countries have an image of the candidate or a party
logo, a unique system appeared in India – the use of everyday symbols that
voters would be familiar with.
Sir Bernard Bourdillon, the Colonial Secretary of Ceylon
from 1929-1932, created the ‘symbol’ system for illiterate Ceylonese to mark
the ballot paper. ICS officer, Sukumar Sen, adopted this system for India’s
first general elections in 1951. The
symbols were hand drawn by draftsman M.S. Sethi. They were carefully selected
to be neutral with no religious or cultural imagery so as not to influence the
voter.
Pakistan’s first general election in 1970 followed a similar
format for the ballot paper. Today election symbols in Pakistan include tractors,
trucks, table fans, kettles, candles, combs, ink pots hockey sticks, cricket
bats and footballs, arrows and kites, loudspeakers and ladders, rickshaws and
telephones, even photostat machines and pressure cookers – it’s a joyous list
of eccentric symbols that go into the hundreds in Pakistan and the thousands in
India.
Elections soon became a corporate event funded by big money,
even funding opposing sides as Ambani did for both Rahul Gandhi and Modi to
ensure influence regardless of who wins. On a global scale, elections of
far-away nations are seen to be important for maintaining whatever current
world order is envisioned.
In the spirit of corporate campaigns, elections are a visual
spectacle. Handmade billboards of candidates painted by the cinema painters of
Royal Park Lahore, have given way to more affordable and reproducible computer
generated panaflex. Street light poles, vehicles, and even clothes are
appropriated for party branding. As younger voters dominate, social media has
created a space for memes mocking opponents, party songs and videos promoting
candidates. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat allow candidates
with limited funds, or who face other restrictions, to reach a large number of
voters, and allows voters to generate their own visual support. Pakistan has
also seen the first AI generated speeches.
After the recent ban on the bat, apps have appeared to let voters know
of substitute symbols rather than the candidate’s name.
The candidates themselves have to dress the part. Dressed simply
to be one with voters, formally to appear powerful, or dressed to blend with regional
cultures. Some female candidates may wear designer clothing, makeup, use botox
or even plastic surgery to enhance their appeal. It is speculated that after women got the vote
in USA in 1920, the male candidates had to sport an ‘eligible bachelor’ appeal
– ‘no beards or moustaches, and no potbellies’.
Sophisticated softwares enhance live election results,
presented by glamourous anchors. Television election coverage has come a long
way from Quraishpur’s measured announcements on PTV.
While Pakistanis doubt there will be free and fair
elections, or even if these will be held on the date announced, campaign
battles have begun, some hoping to influence voters with their visual presence,
some with their forced absence.
Durriya Kazi
January 27, 2024
Karachi
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