CALL it a roadmap or a partial manifesto, but on Sunday PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif laid out at least a preliminary version of the party’s campaign platform for the next election. And little in it is surprising. Most party manifestos in Pakistan have a few features in common. They refer to Jinnah’s abandoned vision for Pakistan or the unfulfilled promise the country had at its creation. They over-promise, setting their creators up for failure. They offer incremental and trite ideas when many of Pakistan’s problems need bold, game-changing policies. And they are usually too broad, promising to solve a slew of problems that the incumbent government hasn’t been able to address. The PML-N’s new plan suffers from many of these problems, though Mr Sharif did attempt some prioritisation: his three Es — education, energy and the economy — are important sectors and help narrow focus. But for one, they were strikingly similar to the PPP’s five Es in 2008 — employment, education, energy, environment, equality — highlighting the lack of originality that afflicts party manifestos. And such rhetorical devices, including the current government’s dialogue-development-deterrence policy to tackle militancy, inevitably turn out to be catchy and easily marketable slogans with no follow-through. Mr Sharif also fell into the over-promising trap, claiming he could push Pakistan into the world’s top 10 economies, leading in everything from IT to tourism, and contain circular debt in six months.

Another aspect the PML-N and others need to be careful about is how they’ll craft manifestos that keep in mind the enlarged domains of the provinces post the 18th Amendment. What does it mean for a party to promise progress in education, environment or health when these are now provincial subjects? Education in particular is a sector that every party leader will want to claim he will transform, when the centre’s authority is now effectively limited to higher education and research. And in the specific case of the PML-N, what has its government in Punjab done to meaningfully improve education in the province?

Such lapses indicate a plan that is not well thought out, one that is devised with an immediate and political goal in mind. And whatever the plan issued by any party, its proof will lie in implementation, which is where successive Pakistani governments have fallen short. Devised by subject-area specialists and sold by politicians, what these manifestos lack when the time comes to implement them is an effective combination of expert knowledge, realism, political will and sheer hard work. No wonder neither voters nor candidates take them seriously, especially after some of those candidates make it into office.