Electoral symbols have a significant role in electoral campaigns. Political parties used stamps to propagate their political stance and to organize political behavior around their programs. The political symbolism demonstrates different meanings to different people due to their socio-political orientations.Some political parties tried to use electoral symbols more proactively than others. These multi-layered meanings led to the articulate political interests of social groups. There are many questions unanswered regarding the impact and use of the political symbol. Can election symbols influence particular areas more than the rest of the country? Does electoral symbol matter in electoral victory? This paper is an attempt to explore the politics and use of symbols in electoral politics. In the electoral politics of Pakistan, the study of electoral symbols is unique due to its multiple uses in highly polarized electoral contexts. The study concludes that political parties use electoral symbols tactfully to maximize their vote bank. A qualitative approach has been used to investigate a core question

The paper reflects on Pakistan's complex security situation and the causes of current challenges that Pakistan is facing due to vacillating foreign policies. It also reviews the role of factors that contributed towards the instability of the country. After Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan involved in a proxy war and trained Mujahideen to liberate Afghanistan. In 1980's sectarianism floored the state, and since it has rooted in Pakistani society. The country brokered several Post-Soviet peace agreements between different militaristic groups in Afghanistan but in vain. Finally, it recognized Taliban for the cause of peace (though temporary) on its Western border. After 9/11 the country had to reluctantly take a "U" turn on its Afghan policy under immense US pressure. This swing of policy opened a Pandora-box for the country i.e. terrorism, Jihadist, ethnicity, sectarianism, economic and political instability in Pakistan. In this state of affairs corruption, deteriorating law and order situation, political instability and economic fragility, variables of internal security, act as key factors in a peaceful solution of conflicts.

Populists are dominating the world's political situation. The election campaign of Donald Trump in the United States, the emergence of right-wing populist parties in Eastern Europe, and the popularity of Narendra Modi of India prove that we live in a populist world. Populism has also returned to Pakistan as cricketer-turning politician Imran Khan's popularity was attributed to a massive publicity campaign. This article aims to evaluate the populist coverage of Pakistan's political parties in media. This research study aims to answer the question of which political party shares more populist views, in what form they share it, and who the targets of these populist views are. Therese archer has utilized the "Quantitative Content Analysis" as a research method to answer the outstanding research questions. The news coverage of the two leading English-language newspapers of Pakistan, namely Dawn and The News International, has been studied. A total of 278 news stories we reexamined during the month of the 2018 elections. The findings support that Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf was the most populist party and the Shariffamily/PMLN was the prime target of anti-elitist views shared by PTI.Findings also support that The News International gave more coverage to populist narratives than Dawn.

The political system of Pakistan is comprised of a multi-party system; therefore, the formation of alliances and counter alliances by the political parties is a common feature of its political culture. Pakistan's political history reveals that alliances are formed against authoritarian military regimes.The alliances were also formed to cope with the civilian administration of popular leaders, as they are accused of benefiting from rigged elections, and authoritarian policies and being responsible for the economic crisis. During the military regime of Ayub Khan, the opposition alliances succeeded in removing Field Marshal Ayub Khan from the presidency as he failed to cope with its pressure in the late 1960s. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of these political alliances during the martial law regime of Ayub Khan.To what extent are they sincere in their cause of developing a viable political system in the country? What circumstances led to the formation of these alliances? What was the impact of these alliances on the Pakistani political spectrum? The present study has attempted to answer some of these questions.