KARACHI: With the elections less than 24 hours away, Twitter was buzzing with political parties trying to sway the vote while many social media users wondered why the government’s press information department had shared a quote by American gangster Al Capone Reed.

In order to increase this year’s voter turnout @pid_gov shared a poster encouraging the people of Pakistan to vote which had an ‘inspirational’ quote from the gangster who was nicknamed Scarface: “Vote early and vote often”. They also shared similar quote by American President Abraham Lincoln.

Journalist Shaheryar Mirza retweeted @pid_gov and said: “The government of Pakistan quoting Al Capone on democracy. This is why Pakistan is the greatest country on earth.”

@MbilalLakhani said: “This wins the internet today.”

Twitter user Gal Galoch said: “Also, ‘vote early, vote often’ is quite illegal.”

@MaryamNSharif, the daughter of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, tweeted a video of her father and said: “This a message for the public from PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif...vote ko izzat do, come out of your house and vote for sher.”

Journalist Aamer Ahmed Khan tweeted: “Who could have imagined a Punjabi leader sending this message from jail to his voters on the eve of a general election? A far greater tabdeeli than even Imran Khan can imagine :) Irrespective of all the engineering going on, this is what makes this election special!”

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari finally made his way back to Sindh (after a country-wide campaign) and was in Shahdadkot when he tweeted: “25 July ko Teer Chalayga.”

His sisters Bakhtawar and Aseefa also took to social media to share party videos of election campaigning across the province.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan tweeted about Sunday’s rally: “I want to thank the people of Karachi for coming out in such large numbers to show support for Naya Pakistan.”

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2018