Manifestos are not government policy

by

Kealeboga Dipogiso

To some point, I agree with the Minister for State President, Moeti Mohwasa, when he says people should know the difference between the ruling party and government. In the past we have had issues, that the BDP fanatics wanted to be associated with progress – roads, the education system which they liked to say everyone earned freely. But, they didn’t want to take responsibility of the failures. The line between the party in power and government is blurred, but substantially these are two different entities.

A political party is by making, a group of individuals aligned to a collective of ideas, who want to assume state power to implement those ideas. A government, is a group of people and institutions mandated to run affairs of the state. Attaining government creates an opportunity for ideas of political parties to be implemented, but a) it is not a guarantee that all the ideas will be implemented

b) the manifestos have to be legitimized by democratic processes into government policies, before being implemented.

In the early days, sooner after the 2nd Republic was set in motion, I urged the new ruling party to transform their manifesto promises into government policies. I argued that, in so doing they should use the legislative process. That will be to, engage in consultations with the public and other development stakeholders to enact their ideas into implementable policies.

I further advised, in recognition of the gravity of importance, that they shouldn’t be in a rush to implement all the ideas at once. Manifesto issues and public policy are different items all together. A manifesto, is an outline of ideal propositions based on ideas a party has consolidated for running a campaign. A government policy is group of ideas and or decisions with a solid implementation plan (feasibility – resourcing, timeframe and other important considerations such as evaluation etc).

So, it’s noteworthy that, whilst manifesto pledges may be mouth watering and compelling, they may not necessarily be pragmatic and tangible for proper implementation. They may need fine-tuning to align them with the situations they were meant to resolve, hence the controversy between utopia and reality. For political accountability, the government has to field questions on matters affecting the nation, which questions may be related to manifesto promises. The social contract, doesn’t start and end with appointment, where the assumption is that accountability must be annexed to the party electoral rhetoric. The social contract is evolving, through concerted participatory policy making efforts that form, deform, reform and restructure the original position based on a complexity of findings as governance takes place. It is the old social contract, _pactum subjections_ that stopped when people traded their freedoms, ala Thomas Hobbes, for protection. The new social contract is about building participatory society, who will hold government accountable to its policies.

Therefore, manifestos require a fresh consultative process, within all known and new government consultative machineries to define and refine and more importantly filter ideas for implementability. Such process, must by all means be legislative, and as inclusive as possible. That is, efforts must be made, to include the electorate in general, at forums where all members of political parties are granted equality to participate. This applies, as well to other stakeholders who may not have had the opportunity to participate in the formation of a manifesto, eg international bodies, civic society etc.

Additionally, manifestos are instruments to guide a campaign for uniformity and coherence. The practice of democracy is such that, one doesn’t necessarily need a perfect manifesto to earn state power. There are no datum standards. One may lie their way into power. In fact, in rejection of the idea of democracy, Plato argued that it is nothing but a contest of orators. He added that the final verdict rests on chance, any of the orators may emerge victorious even when they didn’t have good ideas. Democracy gives way to manipulation, demagoguery and populism etc, all of which, regardless of value proposition, may influence a vote. There is also no evidence that the parties are voted on the note that they had beautiful manifestos. Several other factors, ranging from psychological to physiological may affect voting behavior. The conglomerate of such behaviors will then determine the vote.

Moreover, my favourite philosopher Plato argues that government must embody collective solidarity and be unitary. It shouldn’t profess sectional interests or triumph of one group over the other, which seems to happen during and as a result of elections. If manifestos were policies, then governments would represent the ideas of one class over the other all the time. To mitigate that problem, even though it may entirely be difficult to attain, a consensus is necessary where; 1) there is popular control of participatory processes ie to enhance plurality, inclusion of all interests in the formation of policy is necessary 2) people are equal in the process of debating issues, barriers to the participatory process are removed. As an appointed authority, government’s duty is to extend leave to the nation to determine national as opposed to sectional policies narratives. In that process, to its credit, the ruling party now has the benefit of all psychological and intellectual assets, including institutional processes that the country has, upon which to rely in making conducive policies for the running of the afrairs of the state. That process willows over the narrower manifesto narratives of contesting parties, which may merely be the ideas of a few individuals.

Even though it may not serve interest of all at once, these legislative debates are important in turning manifesto promises into government policy. Additionally, in terms of policy making, there must be transparency and the decisions should be based on rationality and not necessarily colorful oration. If one party, beat you to state power through deceit, you have the opportunity after some other interval of time, to out compete them. It cannot be then said that manifesto ideas must prevail over the state, even when we have the opportunity of crafting policies.

Parties belong to sectional interests, whereas government must be seen to be inclusive in the manner which the undertake public policy. There is however, another perspective, one coined by Marx and Engels, that support this narrative even though differently. It says, the ruling class ideas, in every epoch, are the ruling ideas. This refers to a broader scheme of people who prevail over the state with their ideas – multinational business, the clergy , security sector and policy enterprenuers of countries at the core of the international political economy. They run things, including funding the electoral processes, peer reviews, suggesting policies to sitting governments and the like. If change happens through an election, it may not disrupt some of their strategic interests. For example, when the international community demands the protection of human rights, animal rights and welfare, premised on international law and benchmarks, you cannot refer them to a manifesto piece. So whereas we may assume ruling parties may derive their mandate through elections, the implementation of ideas may face the recalcitrance of institutions both at local and international level. That is why, I said in the beggining that the electorate should mitigate their expectations as there’s a multiplicity of factors involved in the policy making process.

In concluding, I want to use the P4, 000.00 living wage example. The UDC championed a living wage promise, which suggests everyone must earn at P4000.00. If this was to be a government policy, this assertion must be supported with empirical studies and data. In fact, the Statistics Botswana household study of 2016 or thereabout, pegged the living wage at P4000.00. Three issues 1) Clearly fast forward to 2025, a living wage and food basket needs must have increased as inflation happened. 2) The UDC, on pegging the living wage at P4000.00, may have wanted to sound reasonable. 3) In government, the P4000 living wage may only be paid if it is feasible, if it is not it is not.

Furthermore, not all employers who should pay wages align with UDC manifesto ideal of P4000.00. They still want to pay less. But, they will be compelled to pay the P4000.00 if that amount is passed as a minimum wage- a floor beneath which no one should pay. In the formulation of such legislation, there are government consultative processes involved. For example, the employers organisations, labour movement and government should meet at a joint tripartite council and agree before handing it down to parliament for legislation. The feasibility of paying P4000 and other related implications, will be thrashed out and compromises be made during this consultations. This is an agenda of government as an issuer or guarantor of social code. It may not necessarily be a UDC perspective, in its form as an opposition party looking for elections.

 As a way of further expanding the example, implementing P4000.00 may pose a threat of disinvestment and unemployment, and government may not want to be faced with burgeoning unemployment as it leads to other social problems. So UDC may still profess P4000.00 and in fact, currently structures of the UDC are pushing government for implementation of manifesto promises. To clear up your minds of any potential confusion, Mr Mohwasa as Minister of State President in responding to questions on the living wage, will give the perspective of government in the morning and then address a press conference asserting their ideal of a job rich economy that pays a P4000.00 living wage.

I’ve always wanted this issue to be ironed out, so please understand that the government is fed ideas by the ruling party for policy making, but the ruling party is not government. They are different entities and I’m inclined to Minister Mohwasa’s notion.