Manifesto should not only be a campaign tool

SHAH ALAM - Political parties need to take the 14th General Election (GE14) as a lesson and not make their manifesto merely a tool for the campaign to win hearts as well as change the perception of voters.

Political Analyst Professor Dr Sivamurugan Pandian said what happened in the previous election was all sorts of promises were made when manifesto was supposed to be realistic and fulfillable.

At the same time, he reminded voters to be realistic and not hope for political parties to provide them with promises they couldn't fulfil.

"Both parties play an important role, not only political parties but voters need to be rational and not say they were lied to or influenced and such.

"Voters need to have a political literacy that changes for them to know which political party could possibly implement what was stated by them," he told Sinar Harian on Monday.

The Universiti Sains Malaysia Political Sociology Lecturer said there were many issues that would be examined by voters such as the candidate's characteristics, party authority and the issues carried by the party.

He said from there the party would document its manifesto to be delivered to voters.

"The manifesto needs to be comprehensive and become a tool to communicate among voters, parties and candidates so each targeted voting group must be included in the manifesto.

"This means the importance of women must be given priority, not to mention the youth and the many under 18 voters and let's not forget the senior citizen voters. Each group, following their age should be given priority.

"The same thing could be said for gender, education, profession, facilities and infrastructure. Everything needs to be taken into account and is important to be placed in the manifesto.

“Taking the current situation, I think parties want to see the issues that need to be prioritised such as the cost of living," he said.

Sivamurugan said even though manifesto was not the only tool for election, it was an important one.