election program

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An election program is a political text in which short- and medium-term objectives of a political party are formulated and apply for a coming legislative period . An election program is decided a few time before an election and used as a guideline for the election campaign . The practical goal of such a program is generally formulated contents of the long-conceived policy program to be recognized in the concrete and the outside effectively reproduce. Thus, the election platform serves as an advertisement and a means of profiling a political group. If a party does not come to government alone after an election , it may have to cut corners and compromise with other parties in pursuing the goals formulated in the previous coalition negotiations . Therefore, sometimes individual contents of an election program cannot be implemented. In political science , election programs are interpreted as a compilation of goals to which a party undertakes in the event of an election victory. An election manifesto in democratic societies is therefore always a condensate of years of discussions within the party and allows conclusions to be drawn about the processes within the party.

Importance is also attached to the title of an election manifesto. For example, in the 2005 Bundestag elections, the SPD and WASG referred to the election manifesto for the first time as an “election manifest ” in order to give the public declaration more weight. A title such as “Austria politically renewing” ( FPÖ ), on the other hand, is intended to suggest that if such a program is followed, the goal expressed in the name will become reality.

Germany

This article or paragraph presents the situation in Germany . Help us to describe the situation in other countries.

Depending on which political level an election program is to apply to (federal, state or district level), the conference of delegates at the respective level (e.g. the federal delegates' assembly ) generally approves an election program with a simple majority or rejects it with a simple majority .

Election programs are published around three to four months before the election date and can now be found in digital form on the parties' websites. Printed versions of the election programs can also be obtained at election events, at information stands and on request in the party clubs.

Comparison of election programs

Because election programs are very extensive and detailed, many voters do not bother reading the programs themselves. Instead, comparisons and juxtapositions of election programs are very popular: During the election campaign, a large number of such comparisons are made and published by various media.

In addition to the informative comparison, there are also various conformity tests on the Internet. For example, the Wahl-O-Mat provided by the Federal Agency for Civic Education for Germany and the voting booth developed by the Institute for New Cultural Technologies for Austria also check whether personal political preferences correspond to the parties' election programs. Similar institutions exist in other countries.

However, such comparisons of election programs and correspondence tests should be viewed critically as they are not completely neutral. The choice of topics, the reformulation of the positions and the order of presentation influence the reader and control the answers to a certain extent. A more precise judgment about the goals of the individual parties can therefore only be obtained by looking at the election manifestos themselves. Help is provided by online services in which several election programs can be searched for a desired term in parallel.

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