The political parties failed to become an institution largely due to continuous disruption of the democratic system by military dictators and non-existent democratic culture within political parties.
Jinnah Institute Director Raza Rumi stated this while speaking at a seminar on ‘Relevance of manifesto in political dynamics of Pakistan: A discussion on manifesto of Pakistan People’s Party’ organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
No one from the PPP spoke on the occasion. The event was first in a series of bringing into discussion the manifestoes of mainstream political parties and their impact on the electorates in the run up to the general elections. Rumi expressed the hope that after first democratic transition, the political parties would learn that the path to real democracy goes through democratisation of their own rank and file.
Talking about the manifestoes presented by political parties in 2008, he said, most parties missed out on engaging youth, which are currently half of the Pakistani voters.
Analyst and development professional Musharraf Zaidi said that ZA Bhutto if alive today would have been shocked to read the manifesto. He said that the PPP in its 2008 manifesto promised right to education for children from 5 to 16 years of age. Unfortunately, after 5 years almost 25 million students are out of school. In the latest manifesto, he said, the PPP promised to increase adult literacy rate from 54% to 85%. He wondered how and from which head the PPP would procure budget allocation to achieve its goal of 85% literacy in the country by 2018.
SDPI Executive Director Dr. Abid Q Suleri regretted that political parties particularly those in the opposition failed to give shadow cabinet and belied the notion that opposition is the government-in-waiting. He lamented that the missing element in every party’s manifesto appeared to be a deliverable plan of action as to how the party is going to implement one policy statement or the other on important national issues.
Asif Saeed Memon of the SDPI questioned the promises made in manifestos by various parties and said there is acute need for analysing the policy failures or policy successor of the past 5 years. Citing policy statement on the education sector, he said, every party is now promising an increase in budget for education to 4 per cent of GDP, which is exactly the same pledge they made five years ago without achieving any goal.
He said there is also a mismatch between voter’s preferences and promised deliverables by political parties in their manifestos, hence, a lose-lose situation for the social sectors, particularly education and health. He said that PPP manifesto is silent on security issues.
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