With just three weeks remaining until the general elections, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has finally officially announced that its party manifesto will be unveiled on January 27.
The manifesto committee, led by Senator Irfan Siddique, was established by PML-N in October to formulate the party's vision. In the second week of November, the committee took a step further by setting up around thirty subcommittees.
The primary objective behind these subcommittees was to encourage a broad spectrum of party leaders to contribute their insights and recommendations.
Furthermore, the party also launched an online portal to enable the general public to actively participate in the formulation of the party's manifesto.
Senator Irfan Saddique reportedly revealed that over six thousand individuals and institutions actively participated in this initiative.
Despite PML-N being the first to publicly and prominently initiate this process, many had anticipated the release of the document much earlier.
On the other hand, PML-N’s sole contender in the political arena, PPP, conducted the manifesto preparation exercise internally and revealed its manifesto earlier this month.
Instead of acknowledging the party’s lacklustre performance in this regard, its leaders assailed PPP for announcing a bare basic and somewhat thoughtless manifesto.
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Senator Irfan had during interviews said that preparing this document was a hectic exercise and that it took two months to articulate the proposals.
The manifesto committee remained under the spotlight last month when reports of PML-N allegedly planning to propose rolling back of the 18th Amendment made their way to the media. The PML-N was quick to shoot down these rumours, but their rival PPP used this report as cannon fodder against them.
Senator Irfan had also reportedly claimed that after forming a government, they would create a monitoring and implementation council to ensure the execution of this manifesto. The party's information secretary was not available for comments.
A member of a sub-manifesto committee talking to The Express Tribune said that as per his understanding, this manifesto would comprise of how glorious Nawaz Sharif's 2013-17 stint was and how the party can continue that journey.
He said that there will be commitments to ending poverty, bringing down prices of essential commodities, and improving living standards along with a vague road map regarding solutions to economic challenges.
The party is also expected to propose bringing some constitutional amendments to fill in gaps. When asked to explain what he meant by filling the gaps, he said that firstly he was aware of what has been kept by the main committee, and secondly, he said that in countries like Pakistan, such exercises should not be taken that seriously.
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