Karachi: “A broker’s word is his bond”, says a stock broker in answer to his thoughts on the political parties’ manifestos, and he adds, his eyes shifting for a moment from the trade screen: “Can you say the same for political parties and their leaders?” He said he had not read manifestos of political parties for three reasons: One that politicians vying for power make promises which they do not mean to keep; two that he had long ago learnt in life that it was better to make money than waste time on such matters and three that he had received formal education up to grade two in Gujarat language and was unfamiliar with written words in Urdu and English!. In answer to an interviewer’s question on which books he liked to read best in his spare time, a very influential stock broker known to command uncountable money was famously quoted to have unabashedly replied: “I have never read a single book in my life nor do I mean to do so in the future!”

But having said so, it has to be acknowledged that neither all brokers nor all small investors are uneducated or unaware people. Many members of the young generation that now lead several brokerage firms are highly educated and vastly experienced. “No one has to keep track of political and economic events as much as the stock brokers and traders for the increase or decrease in the sum total of their wealth depends on it”, says a KSE member who holds a degree in accountancy and investment analysis. He commented that some of the important issues were common to manifestos of all major parties, namely, the pledge to encouraging foreign investment and pursue privatisation.

But a poll of ten brokers taken this week by this scribe showed that one had leafed through manifestos of three major parties; two had read the salient features enshrined in manifestos of two parties and the rest of the seven were counting money and were unwilling to comment on who says what, until the counting of votes had finished and they were quite sure about which party or parties had won: Their philosophy: The winner must have best to offer!

In general, investors may be unwilling to read or understand the “three D’s” and “three E’s” and so on of the party manifestos, but they have historically favoured the parties that keep investors’ comfortable, local and mainly the foreigners. An investor said that neither the faces nor the pledges of political leaders were new: “It’s just old wine in new bottles”, he says and added that for him manifestos had little meaning. Political manifestos were not enforceable by law. “Who would dare challenge the political party that comes to power after the elections, if that party fails to deliver on its manifesto?” asked another investor. And he himself answered: “No one. For then that party is itself the judge, the jury and the executioner”.