Why Politicians Don’t Deliver Electoral Promises

In case you do not have enough time to read this brief piece, the answer to the question raised above is: corruption. Yes, sounds familiar? I am talking about politicians in developing countries. In general terms, politicians in developed nations are not angels but they are structurally constrained to corner public monies to build private mansions and buy private jets. They hardly can stash away their taxpayers’ monies in ‘foreign accounts’. Any time a leader in Africa is removed, what you hear next is that his assets (and many of the guilty leaders are men) are being frozen in Switzerland or London. It still beats my imagination why someone entrusted with public trust will embezzle public monies and lodge same in private accounts in foreign lands.

Not all politicians make empty promises, and some of them do try to deliver. Human problems cannot be solved a hundred per cent. Some politicians sincerely want to make a difference in the lives of the electorate. Some want to genuinely improve the welfare of the people; build more roads to connect rural farmers to urban consumers, make drinking water available to millions who need it, make environment clean to reduce health hazards, and pay more wages to teachers, civil servants, doctors and nurses to deliver services. But public funds cannot duplicate themselves. As promises and plans are made, and contracts awarded, the same politicians or their cronies or their patrons are somewhere busy, planning and promising themselves and their concubines some big mansions and exotic cars and jets in Dubai, London, New York and Geneva. You see, out of nothing, nothing comes. And the cycle continues till the next election. To break such an ugly trend, people will generally need to wake up, vote right leaders into power and devise means to hold them accountable.