Pakistan election body starts printing 260 million ballot papers for Feb. 8 polls

People walk past flags of Pakistan's political parties displayed for sale at a market in Lahore on January 13, 2024 ahead of the country's general elections. (AFP)

• Warns continued appeals to change election symbols could lead to delay in elections in some constituencies
• Pakistan’s election process involves thousands of candidates, a single ballot paper has a long list of options for voters

ISLAMABAD: Following the allotment of election symbols, the printing of 260 million ballot papers is underway and will be completed by February 3, Pakistan’s election regulator said on Wednesday, cautioning that continued appeals to change symbols could lead to a delay in elections in some constituencies.
Pakistan’s election process involves thousands of candidates and dozens of political parties and symbols, with a single ballot paper containing a long list of options for voters. A total of 150 symbols have been assigned to political parties and another 174 will be given to independent candidates for this election.
“After the allotment of election symbols, the ECP has ordered the printing of ballot papers to three printing corporations and printing work has started which will be completed on February 3,” ECP spokesperson Syed Nadeem Haider told Arab News.
“18,059 candidates are in the fray for this year’s election and 260 million ballot papers are being printed for both national and provincial assemblies,” he said.
40 million additional ballot papers were being printed compared to 220 million printed in 2018, Haider said, while 800 tons of paper were used in 2018 while an estimated 2070 tons would be used in the upcoming polls.
Commenting on appeals for changes in election symbols by many candidates, Haider cautioned that this could lead to a delay in holding the vote in certain constituencies.
“If the current trend of changing election symbols persists, there is a risk of election delays due to the necessity of reprinting the ballot papers within the already limited timeframe and there is concern about wasting special paper used for the ballots as reprinting will be required,” he said.
“The proposal is also being considered that if this process of changing election symbols does not stop, there will be no other option but to postpone the elections in such constituencies,” Haider added.
Appeals to change symbols have come after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan was stripped of its election symbol of a cricket bat on the grounds that it had not held intra-party elections, a prerequisite for any party to take part in the Feb. 8 vote.
As things stand, Khan’s party now no longer has a single electoral symbol to rally behind and instead, each of his hundreds of candidates has been given separate symbols from an independent symbol list.
The symbols appear on ballot papers, with voters able to put a stamp on their symbol of choice. The ballot paper also has names, but over 40 percent of Pakistan’s 241 million population are illiterate, making the pictures extra important for recognition. Separate symbols for each PTI candidate will also mean extra costs to produce separate campaign material for each candidate.