Kristen Gyles | Do manifestos matter (at this point)?

Manifestos do matter, but probably not at this point. We are less than three weeks away from the general election. By now we all know what we will be doing on September 3. A document of election promises and plans will not sway too many minds this late in the game. However, up until as late as a few days ago, before the announcement of the election date, the manifestos could have gone a far way in invoking some level of confidence in the undecided Jamaican voter.

My theory is that once the election date is announced, the value of the manifesto nosedives. Voters at that point see national plans and policy proposals as nothing more than sweet nothings. Why? Because any plan worth implementing would have and should have been well-thought out and ventilated long in advance of the election. That the election date suddenly precipitates the production of a manifesto, tells everyone the document is just a last-ditch attempt at winning over a few more voters.

With that said, the manifesto is the only reference a voter will have leading up to an election of a party’s overall plan and intended direction for the country as a whole. Voters can’t be expected to rely solely on campaign trail speeches seasoned with political disses and offhand comments. Without a manifesto, a voter has to be extraordinarily attentive to every word uttered by members of both parties and then have impeccable memory of everything they hear.

HURTS THE OPPOSITION

It is also worth considering that failure to produce a manifesto hurts the opposition more than the ruling party. Jamaican voters will not be assessing both parties in the same way. One party has been in power for the past nine and a half years and the other has not. The JLP’s list of achievements was therefore better than any manifesto it could have produced. When considering whether the Labour Party should be gifted with a third term in office, the primary consideration will be how well they utilized the nine and a half years in power, because what they have done is what they are likely to continue to do.

On the other hand, Jamaicans can’t do without a clear plan from the opposition. They have been out of power for long enough that both the young and the forgetful need some idea of what their leadership is like.

Maybe the opposition knows this. On Tuesday of this week, the PNP launched its manifesto “Mission Jamaica Love” at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston. But, again, why so late? No new policy or plan that has not already been ventilated within the public space, is likely to be taken seriously by the average voter at this point. For example, for the first time, when glossing through the manifesto, I became aware that the PNP plans to launch a “Grow What We Eat, Eat What We Grow” campaign, “backed by a national curriculum in schools”. Now I have questions – except, I can’t ask them because by the time I get an answer, it will be five minutes before election day.

So late in the election cycle, promises are hardly credible, for the very reason that they took so long to be made.

TO ITS ADVANTAGE

Although at the time of writing, the JLP still hasn’t given us a manifesto, it has used information asymmetry to its advantage. The timing of the list of achievements was good. The document, which is pretty succinct, has been widely circulated by now – both in cyberspace and on paper. The party knew when it intended to call the election, so it was easier for them to plan an effective campaign than it was for the opposition. Nonetheless, it was no secret that an election would be called this year, so there’s no reason why any party at this late stage should be scrambling to release a hurriedly-prepared manifesto.

Both parties have been campaigning. They simply have not prioritised producing their manifestos. Is it because they just assumed we don’t read them and therefore wouldn’t miss them? Or is it something else?

Could the apparent preference for making word-of-mouth promises have anything to do with the two parties just not wanting any book of election promises immortalising on the internet or in people’s homes that can easily be referenced years from now when people want to recall evidence that unfulfilled promises were in fact made? It is easy for a politician to deny ever making a promise when it was made in passing somewhere during the course of a long speech or election debate. On the other hand, it is pretty difficult to deny all the election promises listed in the printed manifesto from last election, still sitting somewhere in John Public’s living room.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com