In September Parliamentary elections will be held here in Afghanistan, something that is increasingly seeping into daily news and life. With people whispering that they might be delayed, might be held earlier, or not at all, all bets are off. The most visible sign of what is to come are the candidates' election posters though: Kabul is increasingly looking like one giant billboard and even every taxi-van seems to have a favourite candidate.
The printing bazar, with tens of shops that can print anything on anything, is working overtime and every shopwindow proudly shows the election posters printed on their presses. I have not yet seen National Party teddies or Progessive Party teamugs, but I'm sure they are being ordered.
One of the most interesting features on the very colourful and already chockablock posters are the candidate's pictograms. In order for illiterate people to more easily identify or remember who to vote for, the election committee has come up with different illustrations that will be on the ballot paper next to name and photo and should be used by candidates on their promotion materials. The pictograms have already been used in the Presidential elections and are a clever initiative in a country where substantial numbers of people have difficulty reading. But...
Every candidate is allocated a pictogram / illustration by the election committee according to a simple system: the candidate blind-picks 3 illustrations from a box and chooses the one she/he likes best / dislikes least. If you are lucky enough to pick 3 illustrations that you like and can then pick your favourite from that set, you're gonna be a happy campaigner, but I just don't think there are too many of those as the illustrations are rather 'divers' to put it diplomatically. A short overview might clarify what I'm talking about. Illustrations: a candle, a parachute, a laptop, a typewriter, a stove, a motorcycle, 2 or 3 frontdoors, a birdbassin, 3 neckties, globes, a tape-cassette, a lock, cherries, a bulldozer, a pencil sharpener, the buckle of a belt, a box of matches, a fridge, a staircase, a ceiling fan, an iron, an empty table with tablecloth, a tankwagon and a well. That's just a small selection of a very wide and diverse range. The creative civil servant must have also been very inspired by his working environment judging from illustrations depicting a desk, a deskchair, a desklight, a pencil, a stapler and a teapot.
Potentially problematic is that not everyone understands what the illustrations are all about and that they do not have any meaning or intended message in themselves. One of my drivers is convinced that the laptop-illustration shows that the candidate wants to invest in technology, whilst the butterfly depicts a green candidate. There are candidates that have a prayermat or a book, so they must be very devout, right? I wonder what people make of the flatiron, ruler and 3 ships: candidates with policy on housework, mathematics and a navy (Afghanistan remains land-locked though), maybe?
Most bizarre are the illustrations that depict items that are not necessarily widely recognised by the Afghan public like the tennis-racket and the binoculors, or illustrations that depict a different version of the same item. I'm sure that the big teapot and the smaller tea-kettle will cause a row; the 4 different types of lamps and lightbulb a riot; and the laptop-computer and desktop-computer a stand-off between two candidates of which one has a flexible office-space policy...
My favourite is a comb, as a co-worker jokingly said: "that's because more people need to dress well"..sounds like a policy to me. I wish all Afghan voters the best of luck in the run-op to 18 September.
