The origins of electoral symbols

In the 1960s, archaeologists made a remarkable discovery in a landfill in Athens. They found a heap of about 8,500 ballots, likely from a vote tallied in 471 BC. Made of terracotta, the ballots or 'Ostraca' had names written on them. Each shard was scrawled with the name of a candidate the voter wanted to see exiled from the city for the next 10 years.

From about 487-416 BC, ostracism or "negative voting" was a process by which Athenian citizens – male landowners – could vote to banish a political leader or 'candidate' without a trial. If any 'candidate' received more than 6,000 votes, then the one with the largest number was exiled. 

If no politician received 6,000 votes, then they all remained. If there was a fairly even spread of votes, no one would be exiled, so usually only very unpopular political leaders were ostracised.

This was probably the very first election system developed since the birth of civilization. In the contemporary world though, representative governments emerged in Europe and North America beginning in the 17th century.

But it was in the 1820s when the electoral symbols gained popularity and importance in the US. The Democrats first used the donkey as their representative symbol during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson. Soon, electoral symbols became an indispensable part of general elections around the world. 

General elections were first held in British India in 1920 to elect members to the Imperial Legislative Council and the Provincial Councils. After the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the first major election was in 1954 where Jukta Front, a five-party alliance, contested the Muslim League in the East Bengal Legislative Assembly election with the boat symbol. The first general elections were held in newly independent Bangladesh on 7 March 1973.

In his book 'Pakistaner Jonmo Mrittyu Darshan', Professor Jatin Sarker talked about how the rural people of agrarian Bengal remembered the symbol or 'marka' rather than the candidate in the 1950s. For them, the pictorial symbol was really necessary.

But are they still that important?

Mujahidul Islam Selim, former president of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, believes that electoral symbols are not that important nowadays because the political culture has evolved.

The symbol of the Communist Party of Bangladesh is a hammer and sickle.

"But the election commission did not let us use two symbols for the election, so we have been using the sickle symbol only," he explained.

Former election commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain believes that the main reason behind using an electoral symbol is to identify which political party a candidate represents and so that party supporters recognise the candidate easily.

"The culture of using symbols to identify political parties is a global one," he added.

In most cases, party loyalists cast their votes seeing the symbols – they do not care about the candidate as much.

Who allots the symbols?

Article 9 of the Election Conduct Regulation 2008 of Bangladesh mentions 140 symbols that a political party can choose from. In 2017 the article was revised and the number of symbols was brought down to 64.

Besides popular symbols like boat, paddy sheaf, plough, lantern and hand fan, there are unusual ones too, such as animals, fruits, vegetables, and even vehicles.

According to the regulation, an independent candidate can choose from these symbols, if that symbol is available. And if more than one candidate asks for a symbol, the election commission conducts a lottery and then allots it to the winner.

Boat, paddy sheaf and plough: The popular symbols

The tale of the Awami League's boat symbol dates back to the formation of the Jukta Front in the lead-up to the East Bengal Legislative Assembly election in 1954.

Interestingly, the Jukta Front alliance reportedly wanted to participate in the East Bengal Legislative Assembly election in 1954 with the plough symbol. However, the Pakistan Election Commission did not allow the Jukta Front to use the plough symbol as it was the symbol of AK Fazlul Huq's Krishak Praja Party in the undivided Bengal.

After the dissolution of the Jukta Front, Awami Muslim League applied to the Pakistani Election Commission for the boat symbol as a majority of the candidates of the Awami Muslim League won seats in the election.

In 1957, the Awami Muslim League dropped the word 'Muslim' from the party name and renamed it Awami League. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman-led Awami League contested the general election in 1970 with the boat symbol and won a total of 160 seats. From then on, Awami League has still been participating in elections under this symbol.

M Sakhawat Hossain said that the Awami League chose the boat symbol because Bangladesh is a riverine country and boats are the one dependable transportation.

He added that as rice or paddy is the main source of sustenance in Bangladesh, the sheaf of paddy was also a natural choice for political parties.

Before the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the sheaf of paddy was first used as an election symbol by the Maulana Bhashani-led National Awami Party (NAP) after the establishment of Pakistan. In the 1973 election, NAP also contested the election under this symbol.

Then in 1978, people from a breakaway faction of NAP joined hands to form the BNP, and took the sheaf of paddy symbol with them. The breakaway group was led by Mashiur Rahman Jodu Miah.

So, in the parliamentary election in 1979, the party contested with this symbol. From then on, it has become the symbol of BNP.

Ataur Rahman Khan-led National League contested the general election in 1970 with the plough symbol. Later, during the rule of President Hussain Muhammad Ershad, Ataur Rahman Khan was made prime minister. Later, Ershad took the plough symbol for his Jatiya Party.

Giving birth to idioms

In the 1954 election of the East Bengal Legislative Assembly, there were three symbols assigned to the parties – lantern or 'hariken' to the Muslim League, boat to the Jukta Front, and umbrella to the neutral parties.

In that election, the opposition Jukta Front won a landslide victory with 223 of the 309 seats. The Muslim League Chief Minister of East Pakistan Nurul Amin was defeated in his own constituency by Khaleque Nawaz Khan by over 7,000 votes, with all the Muslim League ministers losing their seats.

That is when this idiom got popular 'haate hariken dhoriye deoya', which loosely translates to 'hand them over their lantern'. It indicated that the Jukta Front defeated the Muslim League so badly that they were handed the lanterns to walk away with.

Elephant vs donkey: A 150-year-old rivalry

The best example of the power of electoral symbols can be found in the US, where the use of the donkey and the elephant during the presidential elections is a theme that has been running for over 150 years.

The Democrats were first to use the donkey as their representative symbol in 1828, during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson, a popular war hero, ran his election campaign under the slogan "Let the People Rule". His opponents nicknamed him "jackass" due to his populist views and stubborn nature. So more entertained than provoked, he used the donkey on his posters.

It was 40 years later in 1870, when Thomas Nast first used a donkey in a cartoon for Harper's Weekly, titled "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion", that the symbol truly became embedded in the American consciousness as synonymous with the Democratic party.

The Democratic donkey represents hard work, diligence, humbleness and a dedication to the US. However, Republicans strongly disagree and consider the donkey a symbol of stubbornness.

The elephant had already been featured as a Republican symbol by an Illinois newspaper during Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election campaign. And then, Nast used the elephant to represent the Republican vote in the by-election of 1874.

Nast's drawing titled "The Third-Term Panic" mocked the New York Herald, a paper that had been critical of Nast's close friend President Ulysses S Grant. At the time, Grant had already been president for nearly two terms and it was rumoured that he was contemplating a run for a third (the 22nd amendment, which installed term limits on the presidency, would not be in place until 1951).

The Republican elephant represents intelligence, dignity and is considered as the symbol of strength. In contrast to this, the Democrats see the elephant as comparable to a circus animal.

By 1880, other political cartoonists followed suit and both the donkey and elephant became widely used and were firmly entrenched as the accepted symbols of the two parties.