Mush Mush
on Pak'd Off (Pakistan), 19/Feb/2008 17:48, 34 days ago
I'm writing to you from the oft-mentioned guest house in Islamabad where all us volunteers have been gathered for the election period. Given the events leading up to the previously planned election date, I fully expected to be barricaded in for days on end and a little bit considered the possiblity of evacuation, in so much as I have with me all of my treasured possessions. Touching wood, I write here that things have gone surprisingly smoothly. In the first elections since 2002, violence and incidents of "ballot snatching" have occurred but the anticipated election rigging has apparently not, given that the ruling party have endured a rather crushing defeat.The absence of Jon Snow and his swing-o-meter from election night's televisual proceedings left me feeling rather empty so here I present you with a little table which I have compiled from Wikipedia entries (hmmm) to show what's changed....Scratch that, this annoying website keeps bunching everything up so this is the best I can do...Pakistani People's Party(formerly Bhutto) seats '02:81, seats '08:87National Muslim league -N(Nawaz Sharif) seats '02:19, seats '08:66National Muslim league -Q(P. Musharaff) seats '02:126, seats '0839So you can see (she says, waving her pointy stick) there has been a very rigorous reshuffle in the make-up of Pakistan's National Assembly. Another significant change not represented in my table is that Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a pro-Theocracy coalition of 5 Islamic parties representing the North West Frontier Province are now down from 63 seats to just 3 seats. They're sixth now in terms of seats, which is why I didn't include them on the table (I'm not lazy, honest).So that's all the stats out the way and let's face it, you could probably have found that all out for yourselves. Now I want to engage you, on a purely childish note, on something that I found interesting about the election, namely the issue of the party symbols. In Pakistan, the parties don't have their own chosen symbols. Examples from the UK include the rose for Labour and that tree thing for the Conservatives. What happens on Pakistan is that the symbols are assigned to each party at the beginning of the campaign period. Possibly this is to ensure that they all start campaigning at the same time.The first I learnt of this was when I moved to Lahore and noticed big green signs lining the middle of most major roads depiciting a single bicycle, outlined in white. At first I assumed it was a traffic sign but then, noting the non-existence of road regulations in general in Lahore, I thought to ask a Pakistani friend what they were for. He told me that this particular symbol was the assigned symbol for the Government's party; The PML-Q. He told me that the other parties are yet to receive their symbols but they could be absolutely anything ranging from a tiger to a car to a donkey or a carrot! In this age where PR and marketing are practically synonymous with policy (certainly at home anyway), I found it interesting that a serious political contender would advertise their services to their constituency with a picture of a common vegetable next to their face.Naturally my thought processes lead to fantasies of this system being introduced in the UK and me landing the position of "Suitable Symbol Assigner" for all the UK parties or better yet the individual candidates. I was thinking of a poodle for Tony Blair, a marijuana cigarette for Mr. Cameron and, obviously, a selection of pies for Big John Prescott. Please feel free to use the comments facility on this website to add your own suggestions below.Iwas bitterly disappointed on returning to Lahore after Christmas to find that only that only sensible election symbols had been distributed: an arrow for Bhutto's PPP and a tiger for Nawaz, with other equally un-fun symbols for smaller parties. However in Islamabad on Saturday I was amused to note a fitted ladies' jacket had been bestowed upon one poor independent candidate. Snigger, yes but it's no match for the chihuahua I had in mind for former Conservative leader, Michael Howard.