Election Manifestos

 

Ever since Karl Marx and Engels have published Manifesto of the Communist Party, the political term Manifesto has become so wildly known and every political party employs this term in its deliberations or during elections.   It is a public declaration of intentions and principles. Electoral manifestos outline the changes they will bring about through legislations or through other appropriate means should they get majority to form governments.

So, as felt by many, this document is not only important for political pundits but also for each and every voter since he gets in advance the way the succeeding governments are going to govern. But unfortunately, the current status of all these manifestos put forward by various political parties is quite pathetic and fast reaching the point of being ridiculous.   How many voters care about these documents? How serious is the level of discussion on these manifestos? How the particular political party is going to implement the declared ideas? How far they have succeeded in implementing the declared policies? Experiences say nobody has bothered to check the balance between what they had promised and what all they did during the tenure.

Then, Why this manifestos? For whom they prepare this much unwanted document?   It is high time the votes had compelled the political organizations to come out with documents showing what all they have done rather publishing the plans they intend to implement in the next five years or so. We live in a fast changing world and nobody can prepare in advance to meet the requirements in future, especially in economic matters. The changes in political and social conditions will compel any government to tune their governance to suit the ground reality.

So, altogether when we see these manifestos have no worth its salt and political parties should divert their time and attention producing something valuable. Voters, generally, should not be carried away by the big promises made in the manifestos, and they should educate themselves to comprehensively review the past performances of political leaders especially when they seek votes. In our democratic setup, we have seen many times voters getting exploited due to their nonchalant attitudes towards the attributes of democracy. This disposition must be changed. Otherwise after elections, we simply wait, submissively and passively, to get betrayed by whom we have voted to power.

 Prathap MR