It is only when a country has election symbols for each and every one of its political parties that we can safely surmise it has a policy that has finally come of age and that society is ripe for democracy. Campaign slogans at election time that go \'Vote for Spectacles\' or \'Rooster for Mayor\' or even \'Vote for Bow and Arrow, or Else!\' prove that a country is indeed a mature multiparty democracy where voters exercise their adulterated franchise to elect a symbol that they least dislike. That is why certain western democracies are democracies in name only because they don't have symbols like us.

It is especially when elections are symbolic, like the upcoming municipal polls that elections symbols take on a heightened sense of urgency. An election symbol represents all that is good and wholesome about a political party and like a picture that speaks a thousand words it tells voters what its party manifesto stands for in a neat little drawing. That is why political parties fight tooth and nail for their symbol because it symbolises attributes that they hold dear.

For example, some parties have spectacles as symbol because they have a lack of vision, others have a hand because it shows they will be on the take the minute they get to power so they can distribute the largesse, still others prefer the dirty finger because they are a bunch of sleazebags and they don't really mind if everyone knows it.

To make it easier for those of you who are of voting age and above to make up your minds about who to cast your valuable ballots for among parties contesting forthcoming elections, those boycotting them or even those engaged in trying to prevent them, we bring you in the interest of national unity and amity a rough guide to the choice available and their preferred election symbols.