Analyzing political parties’ marketing manifestos for election 2024: a case study of Pakistan

This research aims to critically analyze the manifestos of major political parties for Pakistan’s 2024 general elections, providing insight to voters, policymakers, and stakeholders to support informed choices and constructive debate. Employing a qualitative methodology, this study applies thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis to investigate how parties structure economic, governance, social, and foreign policy issues. The manifestos are coded in various fields, including poverty alleviation, inflation control, global warming, national security, and intra-regional relations. It is with this systematic approach that patterns of recurrence, ideological leanings, and the practicability level of policy can be identified. The findings indicate that while manifestos differ in orientation—PPP subscribes to a model of welfare populism, PTI adopts a reformist populism, and PML-N specializes in developmentalism—they are unanimous in prioritizing short-term electioneering promises, such as subsidies and infrastructure promises, over observable long-term changes. There is a remarkable imbalance between rhetorical commitments and feasible implementation mechanisms across all parties, confirming the symbolic over programmatic character of manifestos in Pakistan’s politics. By positioning these observations within the lenses of populism theory, political marketing, and critical discourse analysis, the study explains how Pakistani manifestos are more likely to be instruments of symbolic marketing and voter mobilization than social compacts.