Several observations occur to me after reading the manifestos of the top three political parties in South Africa., so their impact on voting is limited. They are, however, an excuse to attract publicity in a big launch, where what the party leader says in a speech gets airtime and print media reaction.
Though mostly not too badly written, the documents are not exactly thrilling reading. The ANC manifesto is 12,000 words long, 10 times as long as the Freedom Charter. The EFF manifesto is more than twice as long as the ANC’s manifesto and the DA takes 40,000 words to get its points across. Secondly, manifestos can make some extraordinarily specific promises, especially if the party has no realistic possibility of being voted into power. Yet in making those promises, the party is indicating its position and can be held to that position. So if the DA opposes measures to remove protection for foreign investors, voters can hold the party to opposing such laws in Parliament.
Lastly, manifestos can also be quite unintentionally amusing. Some of the undertakings in the EFF manifesto often invite the exclamation, “Serious?”
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