In my manifesto, I chose to promise to increase equality by 10%. After the election, I was pleased to see that equality was already going up as a result of my policies put in place before the election. However, it stopped at 6.15%. I therefore put in place some more policies to try to push it up further, but it would not go. When I checked the equality page, the line had flatlined at the very top of the graph, which I presume means that I have reached complete equality. It is thus impossible for me to fulfil my manifesto promise. Would it not be best to prevent people promising things in their manifesto that it is impossible to fulfil?
But then you wouldn’t be much of a politician, would you! 
Perhaps there is a random factor in the amount of inequality present in your nation at the start of any game. Logically, it shouldn’t be under 10%, or you will not be able to fulfill the basic condition you chose.
It’s a fair point I guess, because it would be theoretically possible to detect this in code and remove those options. I should think about revamping that screen anyway, because you should be able to look at the data before making your manifesto choices I reckon.
This is slightly off topic but would it also be possible to add more information to the promises screen such as who would actually want what you’re offering?
Also what about policies such as removing ‘stem cell research’ or ‘increase the GDP’ etc.
It’s generally assumed that everyone will be upset if you fail a manifesto pledge. now I thin about it, this is also a bit simplistic. Ideally, such pledges would gain the support of certain groups. The struggle is doing that without overcomplicating the game too much.
In terms of voter cynism, I think it works for that to affect everyone - most people didn’t care about what Clinton did with Lewinski, only that he lied about doing it.
If you lie about reducing poverty one year, what’s to stop you lying about scrapping inheritence tax the next? You’re still a liar…
If failure to meet manifesto promises affects the game in other ways, I don’t know about them yet…
I’d agree strongly with this - I wasn’t able to increase equality in Freedonia by 10% because it was already pushing 100%. Not a bad way to be, but I didn’t like letting the voters down. 
Cheers,
David
I generally just end up turning off the manifestos… they just get annoying after a while if you’ve been playing for several terms. It’s like: “I’ve already got everything freaking sorted out! How am I supposed to do anything on this freaking manifesto!!!”
Well, reducing income tax and corporation taxes work but it quite often just tips your budget over the brink. So that doesn’t work. And if you decide to include voter cynicism with the manifestos, then nobody would vote after a few elections. >.<