THE organisers of the Imagine! Belfast festival have confirmed that they are behind a series of phony election posters that have appeared in the city this week.
Dozens of posters branded on behalf of the fictional Sameold Sameold Party have been attached to lampposts close to the festival venues.
Using straplines such as 'Don't think just vote' and 'A vote for me is a vote for me', the six different designs have been put up ahead of today's Democracy Day event, which runs in the Crescent Arts Centre from 10am -11pm.
Now in its fifth year, the Imagine! Belfast festival aims to bring people together at more than 150 events to talk about "small 'p' politics".
Festival founder and director Peter O'Neill said he hoped the posters, which cost £300 to print, would "stimulate discussion about what democracy means and the limits of representative democracy".
"It’s clearly not our business to tell people what to think or how to think it, but we do like to believe that we’ve been reasonably successful in facilitating discussion and debate, and encouraging new thinking about the issues that affect everyone in a huge way," he told The Irish News.
"We thought it would be interesting to ask people to examine what kind of political culture develops over time when many voters have been simply voting tribally for decades."
Mr O'Neill said the posters would be taken down on Sunday when the festival ends and likely auctioned off in aid of charity.
