PESHAWAR, May 6: With only four days left to the elections, some candidates have adopted a novel way of using cellphone dial tones to reach out to voters.
“This is a message for the people of Kohat,” hear the users of a cellphone company’s service the moment they dial a number.
That’s a message from a candidate, who first recounts the development work and initiatives he had taken in the past, then tells the message recipients about his election symbol and ask the people to vote for him.
The dial tone messages are one of the modern ways of canvassing, especially when candidates are on the hit list of terrorists.
Some are seen using skype, a software used to make telephonic calls over the internet, to address election meetings.
However, many have found paid advertisement or election messages by dial tones a bit irritating.
“Usually cellphone users are bombarded with unwanted messages from service centres, which is quite annoying,” says Sara, a cellphone user, who called the election messages by dial tones quite displeasing to the ear.
However, she agreed that it was a novel and effective way to reach out to the people during the elections.
Cellphone users have been advised to learn about their voter registration and their respective polling stations by an SMS from their cellphone.
“It seems cellular phone companies are doing good business in this election season,” said cellphone user Salim Khan.
While social media is used as a publicity tool by activists of political parties at local level, cable service providers are also broadcasting paid messages of candidates on private movie channels.
