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| October 2, 2002 | Wednesday | Rajab 24, 1423 |
Contradictions in party statements and manifestoes
LAHORE, Oct 1: Most of political parties seem to have taken a firm stand on issues like role of military in politics as far as their pre-polls statements are concerned but, interestingly, their manifestoes are either silent in this regard or these issues are not atop priority.
This conclusion was drawn by a Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency comparative study of manifestoes of different political parties.
For example, only three out of eight parties and alliances, whose manifestoes were compared, have discussed the role of military. These three parties are the ANP, the PML-N and the PPP. Manifestoes of the rest of five parties —- the MMA, the MQM, the National Alliance, the PML-QA and the PTI —- are totally silent on the issue.
In a bid to promote issue-based politics, the study has taken up 15 issues confronting the nation and carried out content analysis of manifestoes of the above-mentioned parties.
According to the authors of the study, both quantitative and qualitative analysis has been carried out to reach the conclusion.
The 15 issues are unemployment, high cost of living and utilities, poverty alleviation, national debt retirement, agriculture and water resources development, education, women development, labour welfare, provincial autonomy, role of military in government, law and order, corruption and accountability, independence of state control media, the Kashmir dispute and relations with India and ties with the United States of America.
Of 15 issues, only four —- unemployment, education, labour welfare and women development —- have been found in all the eight analyzed manifestoes.
High cost of living has been mentioned by all except for the ANP and the MQM. The issue of the poverty alleviation has also been taken up by all but the PML-QA.
National debt retirement has been taken up by the MMA, the MQM, the NA, the PML-QA and the PTI; two glaring exceptions are the PML-N and the PPP. Similarly, agriculture and water resources development has been mentioned by all but the PPP and the provincial autonomy has been missed by the NA and the PPP, with the rest dilating upon it with varying degrees of emphasis.
Law and order has also been mentioned by six manifestoes and two missing are the MMA and the MQM. Corruption and accountability has also been discussed by all but the ANP. Ties with India has been written in the manifestoes of the MMA, the PML-N, the PML-QA, the PPP and the PTI and independence of state media has got least priority and been taken up by only the MMA and the PTI, with the rest of the six parties keeping a mum over the issue. Relations with the US has only been discussed by the PML-N, the PML-QA and the PTI, with the rest ignoring the issue.
The study maintains that when people of Pakistan go to vote on Oct 10, 2002, they will be more interested to vote for the parties or the candidates who have pledged to solve their problems. It is because that the period of electioneering and the publicity of the party message tend to serve as a useful exercise for them to decide about their preference to vote.
But do the voters really take the political pledges seriously and decide to vote on the strengths of the programmes of particularly party? Or allow themselves to be guided by some other factors? A study on the trends of past Pakistani election campaigns reveals that a voter’s choice is mainly influenced by messages coming from two levels —- from national and constituency levels. While the national level campaigns set the overall agenda about various programmes of a particular party, the constituency level messages simply concentrate on the fulfilment of the civic needs of the people. Unfortunately, in many cases, the voters ignore the issues of national agenda and exercise their choices on parochial considerations. It is believed that one factor leading to the exercise of this type of choice by the voters is their inability to understand the dynamics of the national issues due to non-availability of a mechanism to compare the national agendas of various political parties, it said.
According to the profile of each political party on these issues, the study has found out that the manifesto of the Awami National Party has a narrow focus with an out-dated vision. It is because of this reason that its manifesto has not thrown any light on the question of handling the issue of high cost of living and utilities, corruption and accountability, independence of state-controlled electronics media and Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir problems including relations with India and the US. Except for this, the party has not adequately attended to all other issues including the issue of the role of military in government affairs. In fact on this issue, the ANP has vowed to struggle against all military interventions and has declared to hold accountability for past military take-overs in the country. The party has also made noteworthy declarations on the issues of agricultural reforms, education and women development.
The manifesto of the Mutahida Majlis-i-Amal is devoid of all necessary details as to how the alliance intends to go about the implementation of its programmes on various issues, it says. While the manifesto touches upon most of the issues in general terms, it is completely silent on many important issues like national debt retirement, the role of military in government affairs, law and order situation and on Pakistan’s relations with the US. In terms of its position on the issue of poverty alleviation, education, status of women, labour welfare, etc., the alliance has made solid commitments.
The manifesto of the Muttahidda Qaumi Movement mainly focuses on the issue of rewriting of the Constitution to bring it in conformity with the Lahore Resolution of 1940. It vociferously calls for the grant of provincial autonomy and also attends to the question of improvement in the standards of education, women development and corruption and accountability.
MQM’s manifesto also squarely discusses the issue of water resources and refuses to sanction projects like Kalabagh dam and Greater Thar Canal Project without the approval of all provincial assemblies. Strangely, the party has also made many omissions like the role of the military, labour welfare, law and order, unemployment besides not discussing its policy on Kashmir dispute and Pakistan’s relations with India and the US.
The National Alliance has brought out a balanced manifesto with detailed programmes on many important issues. Nevertheless, the alliance has overlooked to attend to some other important issues like constitutional reforms such as its position on the role of military and on the question of provincial autonomy.—Staff Reporter
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