Manifestos, identity and credibility key in Pakistan elections
Manifestos are programs of proposed actions to solve national problems, demonstrate political commitments, and establish social contracts with the electorate. In a nutshell, they are policy prescriptions to win the support of specific constituencies in electoral politics.
In mature democracies, ideologies underlay the platform or manifesto of a leader or a political party. In a political world with broader value consensus on political liberalism and economic neo-liberalism, there is a much narrower space for the parties to strike a different path. The catch-all electoral politics that require a wider political appeal for attracting most of the effective voting blocs makes parties stick to the middle ground. Therefore, radical programs appear to be a thing of the past.
The dilemma all political parties around the world face is how to fashion a distinctive political vocabulary, build a people-focused, credible image, and popularize a political message that becomes the party and leader-specific brand. The framing of manifestos at the time of elections combines the political consensus among the various internal constituents of democratic parties with the vision of their leaders in dynastic and personalized party arrangements.
The manifestos mark the identity of political parties in terms of their specific political constituencies — such as liberal, conservative, secular or religious, or nationalist. The success of a political leader or party depends on understanding what the wide range of constituencies in the country want, and how he or she can make the message in response to national crises or problems clear, short and attractive. For instance, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rightly responded to uneven economic growth and inequality under Ayub Khan with a manifesto of socialism and equality. His charisma and populism added strength to his political message in the new Pakistan.
In a country like Pakistan, where hundreds of political parties are registered and scores of them run in elections, there can be, and are, many manifestos to consider. All of them, thanks to the political necessity of appearing “different,” have tried to sketch out distinctive agendas with nuanced messages close to the party identities and interests of their supportive social constituencies.
Therefore, it is natural to see the electoral manifestos reflective of the types of political parties in the contest. In Pakistan, we have three types of party, according to their identity and ideology: Religious, national or mainstream, and regional or ethnic. The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf can be counted as national parties with broader constituencies of support in all provinces and regions of the country. We can distinguish them according to their ideological orientation, though fuzzy.
Manifestos are more of an electoral ritual. What matters when chasing votes are party identities, political legacies, performance records, power and the strength of the coalition they have put together.
Rasul Bakhsh Rais
What really matters is the identity of the party. Roughly, the PPP has a left of center identity, while the PML-N and the PTI are close to the center with a tendency to be on the right on a number of policies and issues. On the whole, they are not very different when it comes to explaining the causes of national crises and offering solutions. They have listed energy, water, poverty, inequality, bad governance, poor international image of the country, minority rights, youth employment, economic growth, peace, security and prosperity as the problems. At a close look, they are not offering radically different or practically sensible solutions to these problems, except claiming they can do a better job.
Manifestos are more of an electoral ritual. What matters when chasing votes are party identities, political legacies, performance records, power and the strength of the coalition they have put together. They all make or fail to make a wave for the elections. However, there are two very distinctive characteristics of these parties, which are the leadership and the political branding — meaning identity and the central political message. It is not hard to imagine how the leadership factor might play out in the popular evaluation in this age of access to information. While Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif plead their innocence and lambast “politically motived” corruption charges against them, Imran Khan has, for the last two decades, challenged them and their political inheritance by questioning their integrity, national spirit and commitment to the people and the country, holding them responsible for a national decline and backwardness. We will see whose narrative impresses the voters in about three weeks’ time.
The other thing that has become highly significant, both in the manifestos and party identities, is the political messaging. The PTI has been successful in branding itself as the party of change, hope and credible leadership for putting Pakistan on the road toward stability and progress. While the PML-N touts development, showcased by Lahore and the motorways, the PPP has remained defensive and reactive in explaining its pro-poor polices and “sacrifices.”
The religious and regional parties, the two other types, have very little to offer except playing to the gallery of their respective ethnic group or religious emotionalism. Despite challenges, these parties have maintained roots in their social constituencies: Ethnicity and religion, which are their brands, ideologies and political identity markers. At the end of the day, it might be leadership, political messages or issues of credibility that will influence the electoral outcomes.
• Rasul Bakhsh Rais is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore. His latest book is “Islam, Ethnicity and Power Politics: Constructing Pakistan’s National Identity” (Oxford University Press, 2017). @RasulRais
