All about manifestos

This is the time for political parties to launch their manifestos and the major political parties had already done this. Reading these manifestos will help the voters to draw a distinction among the key goals of parties and then decide who to vote for. It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that emotional attachment rather than the commitment to manifestos will constitute the basis of who to vote for. While reading the main features of the manifestos, I was intrigued by the similarities in the manifestos of the PTI and the Tehreek Labbaik Islam. This similarity rests on the idea of Islamic welfare state. Is this similarity coincidental or is there some common link between these two political parties? As voters, it is our inalienable right to ask the leadership of these parties to spell out the details of their version of the Islamic welfare state.

Voters must be aware of the economic model, the social model and the values model of this state so that they can make an informed decision. The implementation of an Islamic state will not be possible by simply tinkering with the existing institutions. It will require a major transformation of the bureaucratic institutional framework. Are these parties ready for this Naya Pakistan?

Dr Zafar Qureshi

Lahore