Topic: Politics and promise's a tool in the hand's of politicians (Read 179 times)

History has shown that Politicians often use promises as a tool to achieve their political goals and gain support from the public. Example is George H.W. Bush famously said "Read my lips no new taxes" yet later raised taxes, which became a point of criticism.

 Promises can be a powerful tool in shaping public opinion and gathering votes during elections. However, promises made by politicians are not always fulfilled, leading to loss of support and skepticism among the electorate. In some cases, politicians may make unrealistic or exaggerated promises in order to gain support but make excuses when they are unable to deliver on their pledges.

Electorate should also learn to use politicians promises or pledges against them by deciding not to vote or support any politicians who do not deliver on his/her promises because fulfilling of promises by politicians demonstrate their ability to deliver on their words and improve the lives of their constituents.

while promises can be a valuable tool in the hands of politicians, it is important for elected officials to make realistic and achievable commitments, and to work diligently to fulfill them in order to maintain support and confidence of the public.

People like being told what they want to hear, so politicians, knowing that people like beautiful stories, tell them what they want to hear. Promises, storytelling - let's say lies - is one way politicians use to get the emotions of the masses on their side. But then, these things are just what they are saying; there's no gun to anybody's head as to who to vote for.

So, as a citizen of the country, when it's time to exercise your civic right through voting, and you see candidates, it's only logical that you go on and research the candidates. You know, when election candidates come forward, they bring out their best. You can always research their past performances when they were in office, how they behaved before now, and then make your choice based on facts and data that you have.

Because, in reality, there's nobody who wouldn't want to sell their story as the best candidate for elections. So, it's up to citizens to pick who they want to trust, because storytelling will always be a tool for politicians, always. And they will tell you what you want to hear. It's just so sad that people just hear these things and buy into the story without really looking up who this person is, what their agenda is, going to their past actions, and even their current actions behind the scenes to know them.

So, you can't blame politicians for making promises, and stories, they just want to be convincing and sell out their manifesto. They do it regardless, lie or not lie.

Stories that will never come to pass is what most of the politicians normally tell and like you said there is nothing as pleasing as when people are being promise heavily to provide for all their needs after being elected, after hearing that alone the masses will even make out their time to help and campaign for them, is actually upsetting to see that even after so many failures of not fulfilling there promises most people will still not realize that those things are common strategy for campaigning and they still continues to fall for it, so actually most of the bad government today is the fault of the voters because I have seen many things that happens on the elections day were somebody will sell there vote to a wrong person who has no plans for the country.

This is very true.
This is why I keep saying that the politicians are keeping them poor for a reason. These politicians have weaponized illiteracy and poverty so much to the extent that these citizens are ready to accept crumbs. When the people are so poor that they don't have what to eat, a person like that won't be thinking about the next 4 years, all he cares about is where the next meal will come from and how his family will make it to the next week.
Politicians know this, so they will make sure the country doesn't get better.

Politicians in this country campaign with basic stuff like electricity and good transportation. It would be a good thing if they actually deliver on their promise, but they make a conscious effort not to because if they do these things for the people, they will have nothing to campaign with.
They make sure the education system doesn't get better so the illiteracy level keeps increasing and people don't have the mental capacity to understand hoe deep an election is.

I have taken out time to study the political situations in some of these countries with obvious corrupt political leaders. I came to realise that the citizens in those countries are only interested in immediate gains instead of considering the future. From some pictures and videos I have watched on social media, I see that during campaign periods, the politicians buy votes by giving out cash, foodstuffs and many other items to bribe the people. At the end, whoever is able to give the most gift items to the people eventually wins the election.

You see in these countries, politicians rarely keep to their campaign promises. Even if they contest again for another term, people will still vote for them because they know how to buy the minds of the people,  yet the people keep complaining about the politicians. It would be better if people will stop re-electing incompetent politicians, but they definitely won't.

This is why I believe a person is not critical enough if he relies on a politician's campaign to know who they will support. What politicians say when trying to be elected for political office should not be what's most important, but what they've done in their previous offices. Look at what they did with the last positions they held and use that to judge them. A person who has been a colossal failure previously can rebrand himself into something new and start to sell different lies to people
Also, look at the person's ideologies. What are his beliefs on certain topics? If you're critical enough, these will help you see through the participant.
I find it absurd that people need to wait for campaigns and political debates before they can decide on their candidate. 

But let's look at things this way, promises are a thing of human. It is one aspect that is almost inevitable or inseparable with human nature. When you think about this deeply, you will agree with me that most of us live our lives making one promise to another, to our family, friends and colleagues at home. It is also an habit that people make promises that are not necessarily fulfilled and only hope to do so.

Although politicians are on another level. They make insurmountable promises to the people and I've also come to realize that people love politicians who make big promises including those that are not realistic at the end of the day and that has been part and parcel of our politics over time. I also don't like this idea of being confronted with two evils and having left with the option of voting for the lesser of the two evils.

In politics, the speaker's speech is the will of the listener. For politicians, getting votes is the main goal, so if they have to make false promises, they are willing to do so. My question is why are we the common people so stupid? Nowadays, false promises are becoming the main weapon of politicians.

Sometimes I have noticed that despite knowing about a politician, I vote only because I have no other choice. Politics has now reached a stage where an honest person does not have a will and even if an honest person enters politics, it is difficult for him to survive.

Politicians and big promises are like 5 and 6. Any politician that is not a liar will not succeed in his political career, this is why we need to be careful with who we vote because they are all the same thing but there must be a better one than the other and that's the person we should vote for.

Politicians are only after their own gains and not about what the masses will benefit, and this is why when you want to fight for your right, you can get mopped because you want to do the right thing that will affect them in one way or the other.

People aren't stupid, most know politics is evil and politicians lie all the time. But people will still go to vote, they will vote for the person they think is less evil and will bring them some benefit. Also, if people don't vote, the election will still happen and there will still be a president leading them, so people will go to the polls with the expectation that the worst candidate won't be elected so as not to make things worse.


We always complain that politicians are liars, untrustworthy...that's true but if we were politicians, we would sit in their shoes. What guarantees that we won't be as bad as them? We hate them, envy them because we don't have what they have. Because human nature is selfish and everyone is greedy, including you and me, not just politicians.

However, everybody is his own politician. Formal politicians simply do what they believe for whatever goal they want to achieve. It's the same with all people.

Don't blindly believe the media or the formal politicians. Base your political self on the best info you can find.

We are blessed that we have alternative media. Fact check the fact-checkers.

You should understand that most politicians are desperate people, they want to get your vote by all means, even if it means giving empty promises. I think that they see it as a normal practice, by telling the electorates what they want to hear so they will get their votes, if they win they'll then unfold their personal agenda. If what the people want doesn't align with what the politicians want, the politicians don't care. This is why people should vote based on the intergrity of the candidates, not really the heaven on earth that majority of them will promise and never fulfill.

In many underdeveloped countries, elections are a do or die affair, it's the strongest and most connected candidates that wins elections, it doesn't matter if they're not qualified. Even if the masses didn't vote for them, they'll rig the election by all means to get into power or remain in power, the masses can protest all they want but it won't change anything.

They’re mostly all liars, the deceit runs deep with career politicians. If they create one policy that benefit you, it’s certain they will have others that take from you. It’s to give with one hand but take with the other. You just have to vote for who you consider is the lesser of two evils.

It's called politics for a reason, politicians are not comedians that will come on stage to make you laugh, they come to discuss issues that affects the generality of the people, and a lot of persons are moved by what they hear especially when it comes to policy formulation.
This are the reasons why we have the parliament to help checkmate the excesses of the Executive if they are going contrary to what they promised, it's called "Check's and Balance".

Politics is just like a chess game, if your tactical enough you will know how to conquer your enemies with propaganda and the rest of it, so during campaign a lot of politicians make use of this propaganda which is part of politics, but those propaganda stops after election, because governance and political campaign are two different things.

If you must know politicians are usually like this and they are not straightforward in things they do more especially the African leaders. They have been so used to lies in form of promises and I wouldn't like to trust their words and their promises because they will end up doing the opposite.

Just take a look at my country today, you would see what we are facing in the hands of politician but yet we don't still learn from our mistake because during election they would be bribed with some peanut to vote them, giving them fake promises and after they succeeded in winning the election they will now turns to make back all the money they spent during their election campaign. This made me dislike politics so much, especially that of their fake promises.

Of course, people like beautiful stories, but this is almost always not true, especially in modern realities. For example, Putin has been lying to Russians all his life, and now his lies are maximized. I don't understand how Russians still believe him, are Russians really so stupid?

This is politics for you, people usually choose their candidate they want to vote for base on what they've promised to do ,you can’t tell who is a good or bad leader and until when they're elected into power.

That is politicians for you, they can't be trusted because they put their own interest first which they can only achieve by lies from  the people. Their is no truth in what they say, we can only know if a politician is good only by the works they did in the past for the people.

If supporting politicians is by the things they say you will definitely fall for them. You don't need to be surprise about it or to be worried that is politicians for you. It is always rare to see a politician who keep to their promise.  The masses just need to be very careful when supporting politicians to avoid being in regret in the future.

Politics and lies goes together so lies is one good tool that politicians of all ages have used in getting the votes of the masses so that they can get to political power the fact is that human being are moved by what they see and hear so if someone is telling them about a big story they will easily believe and fall prey to it so over time politicians have used lies in convincing people to get what they want, even though it's not all and it varies from place to place it all depends on the enlightenment level of the society and even the development level of the democracy in the society because there are societies that go can't use lie's to deceive people to come to power because if you don't perform up to expectations you will be voted out of power in the next election season

However, candidates do not have the right to make promises to the people before the elections or it is a crime. Still I think of it as part of the election. In this case we want to put the entire blame on the voters, because we sell our votes with some money and sweet words from the leaders before the elections. Many times we vote for unqualified candidates because of some small advantage. It is nothing but our ignorance.
We voters rely on promises from politicians to select candidates who are eligible to vote, but we don't want to consider whether he is actually a candidate who is eligible to vote. Why are we sold on little promises?