KARACHI: After days of campaigning for the elections, all the parties and their candidates are now taking a day’s breather before the grand moment of truth on Feb 8.

Looking back at the past few days of preparation before the big day, one wonders at all that happened, or did not happen.

Maybe it cannot be seen as the usual ‘party time’. Yes, of course, the rallies were there, the assurances, the promises, the banners, bunting and banter were all there.

Some faces may have been fresh and new but they carried the same old banners, saying the same old things; things which you want to believe. However, if you do, there was evidence from the past to insult your intelligence.

Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan’s (TLP’s) Saad Rizvi stared back at you from an advertisement pasted on the back of a rickshaw and reminded you of his late father Khadim Hussain Rizvi. To change thoughts, you looked the other way to admire that yellow crane, his election symbol.

Parties wind up election activities as deadline ends

It won’t be wrong to say that under the current circumstances the election symbols seem more interesting than the candidates, especially the huge variety issued to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

Parents of toddlers are having a ball pointing out the symbols and the differences in them to their kids. There isn’t a bat, but a table tennis bat, slightly different is the racket, another symbol reminding of the lost bat (and batter) is the wicket. More symbols assigned to the same party can also be used in educating the young such as the peacock, dove, camera, microphone, fork, brinjal and the drum. At least it is something new to look at when there is nothing new about the faces.

Among the old symbols are the arrows, which still hit bullseye even though they are fired from bows that are quite new. The kites are still flying in the air, with or without their strings, and the weighing scale still gives the correct measure. They can all be spotted with the very yellow lion, or is it tiger? Perhaps still not big enough to be called liger though. Still, all are showing their worthy presence by marking each other like zealous hockey players, maybe not on the ground but on poles, electric wires, tree branches and roundabouts of small and densely populated localities.

They are not so visible on the bigger, broader roads of the city, save those banners covering the pedestrian bridges. There you also had the trucks with loudspeakers, the innovative parades of camels, which was enjoyed greatly by the onlookers, even though they wondered about whose symbol the chair was and if it was even worth their stamp.

A small moving truck had the video of Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman playing on an electronic screen on one side. He seemed to be making a lot of sense, too, and one really wanted to stay and listen to him. But the truck didn’t stay and kept moving in traffic. It didn’t stop for anyone.

The liveliness, the slogan chanting, the smiles may have been there at rallies in the presence of the candidates, who played well before the big crowds whom they hosted well. Still, the rallies could never reach as far as social media this time.

The roadside party camps where such speeches could be played were also absent, well mostly, with exceptions here or there where a political party set up camp on a vacant plot or empty shop. But they played the same old party songs to which no one seemed interested in breaking into a dhamal.

To find your constituency and location of your polling booth, SMS your NIC number (no spaces) to 8300. Once you know your constituency, visit the ECP website here for candidates.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2024