SYNTHETIC POLITICAL PRESENCE: GENERATIVE AI, AUTHORIZATION, AND ELECTORAL COMMUNICATION IN THE 2024 ELECTIONS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence entered the 2024 electoral cycles in India and Pakistan through politically different forms of communication. This article asks how AI-generated and AI-assisted media were used in the two electoral environments, why those uses differed, and what the comparison reveals about political presence, authorization and democratic verification. Using a qualitative comparative case design and Digital Discourse Analysis of publicly documented campaign videos, posts, synthetic images and AI-assisted political communication, the study triangulates direct campaign material with institutional documents, fact-checking, digital-rights research and established journalism. Pakistan’s most distinctive documented use was communicative continuity: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf used a disclosed synthetic voice to reproduce the communicative presence of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan, including a January 2024 international virtual-convention message and a post-election AI “victory speech.” India displayed a broader ecology. AI-supported translation and personalization expanded linguistic and audience reach; synthetic resurrection and generative imagery extended symbolic political presence; and unauthorized deepfakes of public figures created problems of provenance and attribution. The article develops synthetic political presence to describe technologically generated, reconstructed, translated or extended representation of an identifiable political actor without equivalent physical co-presence or an identical original performance. Its central comparative claim is that syntheticity alone does not determine political function: authorization and institutional context shape whether AI primarily sustains continuity, expands communication or disrupts verification. The study does not infer persuasion, turnout or electoral effects from circulation metrics. It concludes that electoral governance should distinguish legitimate synthetic representation from identity appropriation while strengthening disclosure, provenance, rapid remedies and verification capacity.