Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has always remained ahead of others when it comes to the use of social media in Pakistan’s political landscape.
Data shared in a report from Digital Pakistan 2023 states that the number of internet users in Pakistan swelled to a record 87.35 million in January last year, showing a 4.4 million increase between 2022 and 2023.
The number of social media users also increased to a record 71.70 million in 2023, including 37.30 million users of Facebook, 71.70 million users of YouTube, 12.95 million on Instagram, and 16.51 million on TikTok.
Similarly, about 11.95 million people are using Facebook Messenger, 9.30 million Linkedin, 25.70 million Snapchat, and 4.65 million users of X — formerly Twitter — in the wake of an increase in mobile connections to 191.8 million in January 2023 in Pakistan.
The importance of social media is made very clear by the fact that there is news circulating that the internet might be shut down two days prior to the election. Young Pakistanis will be turning to social media for the truth on election day and if the election is to be seen as free and fair, social media will be the judge and the jury, senior producer and journalist Marium Chaudhary said while talking to TheCurrent.
The results show the importance of social media in the election arena. Its power was fully exhibited when a huge number of supporters turned up online using VPNs when the internet was down during PTI’s virtual jalsa.
Senior Journalist Benazir Shah recently tweeted that according to a google search, PTI has emerged as the most searched political party in the last fortnight.
As the elections are approaching in less than a month, the party is in a crisis because they have been stripped from their preferred election symbol of a cricketing bat.
The candidates however have been issued varying symbols from a human eye to an eggplant.
PTI’s candidate Zain Pervaiz from PS-99 has been given the symbol of human eye and he used a creative way to propagate it. He made a rip-off of the famous Tahir Shah’s song Eye to Eye.
In another video, a clip from a cartoon film is extracted to publicise the symbol of eye.
The same candidate, Zain Parvez, came up with a clip from a Pakistani Drama where the heroine is seen saying that she will only what Zain wants her to do.
As a candidate was allotted the symbol of a desi bed (charpayi), he got a charpayi painted in colours of the PTI flag. Along with that they were seen chanting the slogan, “Aye Aye Charpayi”.
The same candidate got a charpayi made adorned with fairy lights and released a song titled, “Charpayi da nishan, Rakho yad meri jan”.
The candidate alloted the sign of brinjal has taken a huge leap of creativity by releasing a “baingan song”. This symbol of is given to the candidate of PTI from NA 46.
The meme brigade were tickled enough to promote the different election symbols including a wheelchair where the punch line was give vote to wheelchair to be able to get the system back on foot.
The meme for the symbol tap, that is “Nalka” shows a clip from an Indian movie.
Summing up the whole confusion folk singer Malko released a song with lyrics implying, whatever the symbol is, vote will be cast to Khan.
Apart from the hilarious campaigns by PTI, the party is also seriously pursuing the upcoming elections by using social media. The party has launched an online portal containing detailed information of candidate names & symbols to avoid disinformation.
