Manifestos essential for voters to make informed choices, says Mandaza
Manifestos are important instruments during elections as they outline political and economic aspirations of parties and individuals who wish to be voted into power, political analyst, Dr Ibbo Mandaza has noted.
Dr Mandaza was speaking at an Asakhe Online Twitter space, This Morning on Asakhe, Tuesday, about the elections in Zimbabwe.
He bemoaned that the two main political parties in Zimbabwe have not yet launched their manifestos ahead of the 2023 polls, arguing that they are shortchanging the electorate information that may help them make informed political decisions.
Justice and Parliamentary Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi recently announced that the ruling party will not be launching a manifesto this year, but their actions will be evidence of what they wish to do for the country.
The opposition party, Citizens’ Coalition for Change, (CCC) has not officially launched its manifesto either, although party leader Nelson Chamisa hinted that they will unveil one soon.
“A manifesto is meant to be the ideology, the agenda the promise of a particular party in relation to the election and in attracting voters and to itself. It is usually a very important instrument in any election,” Dr Mandaza said.
“It outlines policies in great detail both political and economic but sadly the manifesto has become less and less important and less and less visible. You heard Zanu-PF saying over the weekend that their manifestos are their actions which have attracted ridicule where people are saying the actions are portrayed by corruption and misgovernance, mismanaging the economy. The CCC has no manifesto either.”
Dr Mandaza said it is disheartening that of late manifestos are being used to flex political muscle instead of being a yardstick used by both the parties and the electorate to ensure that politicians stay true to their promises.
“People need to use the manifesto to check if electoral promises are fulfilled. In Zimbabwe, people vote for whom they want to rule them. If you look at the case of Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe, it was clear that with
such issues of misgovernance, people gravitated towards a different leader. Due to issues of corruption and misgovernance, the people this year are likely to vote for the opposition, not much because of its competence but because of the incompetence of the ruling party.”
