Islam Alijaj’s election campaign for the Swiss national council gave a voice to 1.8 million underrepresented people with disabilities.

22% of people in Switzerland live with disabilities. Yet these 1.8 million people are dramatically underrepresented. Hardly any people with disabilities hold influential positions in society as they are mostly accommodated and cared for in closed institutions.

The lack of representation has serious social consequences: large parts of the UN-Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have not yet been implemented in Switzerland. Hence, Islams election campaign for the Swiss National Council was also a referendum on Switzerland's failed inclusion policy. Or as he put it: “I don't want my children to grow up in a society where their own father is seen as inferior.”

Islam was convinced that people with disabilities could no longer wait for change but had to take the fight for more self-determination into their own hands. And he knew that real change could only be achieved in the national parliament.

However, Islam was the longest of longshot-candidates: He was born with cerebral palsy; he sits in a wheelchair and has a speech impediment. People can barely understand him when hearing him speak for the first time.

Moreover, Islam had a hopeless starting position on the party-list. To be elected anyway, tens of thousands of voters had to write his name twice on their ballot paper. All while competing with over 700 candidates from the major parties for 36 seats allotted to his constituency (Zurich) for the Swiss national council.

22% of people in Switzerland live with disabilities. Yet these 1.8 million people are dramatically underrepresented. Hardly any people with disabilities hold influential positions in society as they are mostly accommodated and cared for in closed institutions.

The lack of representation has serious social consequences: large parts of the UN-Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have not yet been implemented in Switzerland. Hence, Islams election campaign for the Swiss National Council was also a referendum on Switzerland's failed inclusion policy.

Because of his speech impediment, Islam is very limited when it comes to one of the most important skills of politicians: public speaking. We turned this into a strength and made him the voice for people with disabilities who were tired of not being heard.

(1) Become a voice to convince critics and sceptics: Islam is very smart, but his speech impediment strongly affects the perception of his intellectual capacity and competence. We used AI to overcome these barriers in the minds of voters and show the person behind the disabilities.

(2) Enable the disabled to become a voice for Islam: Although people with disabilities are a large group of voters, they hardly participate in the political process, which is often not barrier-free. Hence, we enabled other people with disabilities to support Islam and to spread the word, that people with disabilities finally deserve a champion in the national parliament.

We created an AI-generated text to speech avatar of Islam based on HeyGen. The voice was intentionally designed to still resemble Islam’s while minimizing his speech impediment. The avatar was launched on social media in September 2023 and presented Islams election platform over the course of four Weeks. It created a completely new interface between Islam and the population enabling him to show his intelligence and ideas.

We recruited volunteers from the disabled community and trained them on how to become politically active. Between Mai 2023 and September 2023 we conducted 10 Workshops on how to support Islams campaign online and offline. Hundreds of people from the disabled community distributed over 200,000 Flyers, organized 50 inclusive campaign events and supported Islam on social media generating an organic reach of over 5 million (half the population of Switzerland).

Islam was elected. He won over 95,000 votes, overtaking four rivals on the party-list and beating over 700 other candidates. Islam dominated the headlines for Weeks. His Campaign generated a PR-Value of over 2 million making the rights of people with disability a national topic. Islams Avatar was shared by Switzerland’s biggest boulevard newspaper (Blick) and became of the most successful Posts of the entire election.

It is an ironic but wonderful twist of fate that Islam, a person who can barely speak himself, has grown into the voice and hope for people with disabilities in Switzerland.

Islams election will have positive long-term impacts for people with disabilities. On the one hand, especially young people with disabilities finally have a strong role model to show them that even a severely disabled person can reach the highest offices in Switzerland. Secondly, Islam will shape Swiss disability policy in parliament. In 2024, he has already introduced his first initiatives on equal opportunities for people with disabilities. Furthermore, we are already working with Islam on a campaign for a popular vote that aims to achieve full legal equality for people with disabilities.

As the project aimed to achieve greater equality for people with disabilities, we also included people with disabilities in the creative process. The photo for Islam's election poster was realized with a photographer who lives with mutism. Other people with disabilities were empowered in workshops to get involved in the campaign, for example to organise inclusive events or promote Islam on social media.