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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

Electoral campaign strategy of a political party between definition and reality


Tocqueville once wrote: People had real convictions. Everybody followed his own convictions boldly, passionately.1 Nowadays that kind of people is a rarity or, at least, pretty hard to be found every here and there, especially when it comes talking about politics and their strategies. When establishing an electoral campaign strategy, those attributes previously mentioned by Tocqueville are imperative. The decisional scheme in elections is very complex, being conditioned not only by the rational/affective element, but also by various factors that characterize this process. The first Europarliamentary elections gave rise to certain problems that the parties did not have to deal with in the previous elections: how to manipulate the electorate using European themes, or, more exactly, with what to buy it off? Looking back in the past, we can see a wide spread trend among European election campaigns: they have been fought primarily at national level, organized and led by national parties, and even today we can compare them to second-order national contests because domestic issues and quarrels dominated electoral campaigns in all twenty-five member states.2 As a result of these nationally-oriented campaigns, voters choose in European Parliament elections based on national-level, not European issues. They often seek revenge on their governments and consider that their vote is the solution to punish them.

Toqueville, Alexis The Old Regime and the Revolution, vol. II, trans. Alan S. Kahan, Chicago: University Press, 2001, p. 237
2

Kauppi, Niilo. Europe: A Side Issue in European Parliamentary Election Campaigns. EUSA

Review Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer): 1, 3; 2004.

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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

Chronic low turnout and lack of European content contributes to the oft-mentioned democratic deficit in the EU, because campaigns for the only directly elected European institution do not actually concentrate on the Parliaments record or policy domain. Because national elections generally ignore these issues as well, there is no forum in which voters can register their preferences on policies within the European Parliaments ever-expanding purview. But we must observe the varying degrees of Europeanness to European Parliaments campaigns correlating to national variance in public attitudes and knowledge. There are some occasions when these campaigns embrace a European hue, and this trend often occurs in the United Kingdom. UK citizens, however, consistently have low levels of knowledge about the European Parliament and an unfavourable impression of it. Over the years, the European political parties had neither the financial nor the organizational means to lead pan-European election campaigns. Because the European Parliament lacked power there was little reason to focus on the European Parliament in elections because not as much was at stake at European level as in national politics. The June 2009 elections, however, highlighted a different and potentially significant trend: new EU regulations provided for the direct financing of European political parties, allowing them to campaign directly in the elections. It has been argued that these developments could lead to the Europeanization of European elections campaigns. Has been that goal achieved? They sky is still unclear, but we will try through this essay to bring some sunshine upon the electoral campaign strategies issue. This paper seeks to offer a definition of an electoral campaign strategy of a political party and, in the same time, to present the results of a profound dig into the matter, using as a main source the European Peoples Party, a party that has been dominating EU institutions in the last years and has invested a lot of energy in fostering the intra-party cohesion, with presummits of EPP leaders ahead of European Council meetings or the coordination of national ministers with EPP colours ahead of ordinary Councils. Looking back in the past once again, it is to be noticed that the first two sets of elections were set against a backdrop of low public knowledge about the European Parliaments and about
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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

the existence of direct elections. In 1984, in some countries less than a quarter of the electorate realized European Parliaments elections were going to be held. A campaign focused on the European Parliament seemed unlikely to inspire many voters. Since then, despite the significant increase of Parliaments power, the content of European electoral campaigns has remained persistently national in tone. Indeed, although European matters have gained importance to national political parties over time, this significance has not manifested itself in the campaign themes that these parties choose. More recently, others have stated that the second-order national election character of European campaigns carries on because European Parliaments elections still do not change the executive make-up of the European Union. As a result, some observers come up with the advice of electing a President or giving European Parliaments power over the executive as a solution to give European elections a more European character. Furthermore, analysis of public opinion reveals that voters regularly overestimate the power of the Parliament, seeing it more much more similar to national parliaments than it actually is. This also makes it unlikely that greater powers for the parliament would change the national nature of European campaigns. Moreover, the European public has clearly perceived the increase in the Parliaments power, but the nature of European electoral campaigns have not changed as the Parliament has. Later observers stressed that because fewer, and hence larger, electoral districts are used in European Parliaments elections, and it is difficult for parties to foster personal connections between MEPs and the electorate, so better-known members of the national parliaments assumed prominence in the campaigns. This has led some to favor proposals for electoral system change, including voting on a Tuesday or voting electronically. In fact, in order to promote higher European-ness, in 1999 a common system of proportional representation was introduced for European elections. European Parliaments election campaigns in 1999 and 2004 remained nationally-oriented, however. All European Parliaments electoral districts are within a single country and, while transnational party federations write election manifestos and initially conducted voter-

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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

education campaigns, actual decisions about the content of European elections are made by national-level parties in a national arena. Another angle from which we can analyze the strategies of electoral campaigns is by look at those who actually conduct the European election and examine their motives for choosing campaign themes. There are a number of hypotheses which seek to explain the behavior of national political actors. From national parties perspectives, it is more efficient to spend limited resources fighting on national issues because this kills two birds with one stone. Why should party organizations spend precious time on EU issues when they can campaign in EP elections on national issues and still win seats in the Parliament? Taking as example the Czech Republic, in order to defense their electoral campaign strategy, Doleal stated "The campaign has little to do with European issues because that doesn't say anything to the voters, who at a time of economic downturn are much more preoccupied with what's going on at home than far away in Brussels. Also, some of the smaller parties do not have that much money, so they are just using the European elections to prepare for the fall." Some have argued that it is not national parties lack of respect, but fear, of the European Parliament that provokes national parties to stay away from European issues when building their Euro-campaigns. In states like Denmark and the United Kingdom there have been released nationally-focused campaigns in order to reassure voters that a directly elected European Parliament would not try to diminish national parliaments powers. The national focus of European Parliaments campaigns has created a situation where Euro-elections are interpreted as referenda on the incumbent government; this has opened national governments up to additional opportunities for voters to criticize their domestic achievements and paved the way for new competitors in their party systems. However, the literature on European Parliaments election campaigns consistently notices that at some times some parties especially but not exclusively in the UK and Denmark do stress European issues. In Denmark a different party system is used for European Parliament elections due to the presence of anti-EU parties that do not contest national elections. In the United Kingdom the electorate is widely Euro-skeptic. Because voters in these countries are so divided over Europe, it is not a valence issue and thus a logical issue for domestic parties to include in their campaigns.
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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

As a central part of the 2009 campaign, the EPP formally endorsed Jos Manuel Barroso for a second term as President of the European Commission at the Congress of Warsaw where it was launched the election manifesto Strong for the People. The EPP won resounding victories in Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Romania and Poland. With 265 out of 736 seats the EPP is by far the largest political Group in the European Parliament. The European citizens sent to their politicians a message that was crystal clear: to put ambition and political will back at the heart of European action, to meet the daily concerns of the citizens and to ensure Europes leading role in the world. The European Peoples Party recent discussions about Angela Merkels implication in the French presidential election campaign have shown that their party politics have started to leave national borders. Whether or not Barroso will run again, the EPP looks very much ready to rally behind a common candidate and to make use of the power network they have built over the last years.

The current President of the European Parliament (Parliament's speaker) is Martin Schulz, elected in January 2012. He presides over a multi-party chamber, the two largest groups being the Group of the European People's Party and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, and his aim is to bring a measure of democratic control and accountability to the other institutions of the European Community, despite its severely restricted powers. In just a bit more than two years, the next European Parliament elections will take place and public discussions about the personnel for the 2014 European Parliament elections have already begun. As for the elections coming in 2014 it is expected to be a major event because the political forces will be raising the stakes by putting forward common candidates and possibly common campaigns while a new political force may set fire to the rain by putting issues on the agenda the other parties not be willing to talk about, but that may cost them the necessary voters to become the largest party in the European Parliament that will then be able to propose the candidate for European Commission President. These European Parliaments elections will be very important and not just because they decide about the composition of the Unions first legislative chamber as they have done in the

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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

past. This time, they will also be, for the first time ever, decisive for the future leadership of the European Union. And they will be run on real substance, issues that may be understood in the same way by citizens across Europe. One of the major reasons why this will happen is because the largest political forces in the European Parliament, the European Peoples Party (EPP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES) will present common European candidates for the Presidency of the European Commission. The other one, as well of great importance, the Pirate Party will be there. The Pirate Party currently has only two (Swedish) Members of the European Parliament, but recent successes in German regional elections could stand as a clue that this movement could get some prestige in the next years. While EPP and PES will definitely present candidates with real chances to become the President of the European commission, and this way they will raise the stakes of the election campaign, the European Pirate Party could become the first genuine Trans-European party with issues such as digital rights and transparency that may appeal to their target group, which consist mostly of young people all across Europe, without needing to nationalise the message in order to be understood. Additionally, if they touch topics such as democratic procedures at EU level, they may also be able to grasp the attention of voters who are critical about the way EU institutions work without necessarily being critical to a common European project. Going further in analyzing past and current electoral campaign strategies in order to elaborate a well-founded definition, we must bring int discussion the last European Socialists electoral campaign strategy, which proved to be a failure, but may have given them the necessary lesson to change the tactics. They have already agreed in November 2011 run for the next elections with a single candidate for European Commission president. The question is whether they will find someone with an appeal for all Europeans and whether they can run a campaign that puts both this person and the PES issues into a cohesive whole. If they find a strong figure, they will be able to run strongly against the EPP because if the EPP has been dominating European politics in the years of the European crisis, a good campaign should be able to attribute these failures to their side. If EPP and PES will be able to present strong candidates and will be able to present themselves
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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

politicised. Current research has shown that a gradual rise of the media attention for the EP has appeared and that especially when topics become heavily politicised the focus raises considerably. And if we were to define the strategy of an electoral campaign, it would take the shape of a clearly structured and organized effort aiming to influence the decision-making process, to gain power and to attract voters through a simple and credible and yet powerful message, by speaking the language that people speak and not in terms of official languages , but also in terms of feelings, political and cultural differences from one Member State to another. (VicePresident Mechtild Rothe (PES, DE)). A campaign having at its core the concept of choice, without favouring any particular one is meant to appeal to all tints of political perspective from the holders of integrationist positions, to those that are more concerned about the preservation of the sovereignty of Member States. There are major policy choices confronting the EU and they will have deep impact on peoples lives to help to solve the pressing problems the world of using the internet to enter the voters houses and hearts. This is a good communication strategy, as long as they dont underestimate the power of offline communication. Over the past decades parliament's power and influence have increased and the 2009 election - the 7th in 30 years - gave people across Europe the opportunity to shape politics for the next five years. The is facing. These choices are decided at European level with the Parliament playing the leading role as to which policy choice is selected and that citizens can influence the selection of these policy choices by voting in the European elections for candidates who reflect their political preferences. A trend that lately has been taken more and more seriously because of its cost-effective nature is that official website, social-networking and content-sharing web platforms were the main weapons in this fight for political power and no rule has been broken yet. The key factors that brought success to the European Parliaments online strategy were integration, production and interaction, all of them being used to the extreme. The European Parliament used all the communication channels available on the Internet to spread through its message, focusing on continuous production and effective diffusion on content, to end up actively interacting on the social media platforms.

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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

To sum up, electoral campaign strategies need bright minds to give birth to them, ambitious and good-intended leaders to transform the facts in action. More than that, these strategies are in a continuous transformation. We can note that mass-media have changed from a simply intermediate channel to a part of the power system. The media authority is accepted even by the political class, now trying to develop collaboration activities with media; Political communication is very personalized. The success depends rather on the qualities and the personal image building, than on the represented political body; But enough with keep turning our heads back to the past again and again. What type of strategies will they use in the future? What definition will they accept as moral? It remains to be seen if they will come up with the real convictions Tocqueville was invoking long time ago and if everybody will follow his own convictions boldly, passionately.3

Toqueville, Alexis The Old Regime and the Revolution, vol. II, trans. Alan S. Kahan, Chicago: University Press, 2001, p. 237

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Mihaela Ion

SPE I

Bibliography
Hix, Simon and Christopher Lord. Political Parties in the European Union. New York: St. Martins Press, 1997. Kauppi, Niilo. Europe: A Side Issue in European Parliamentary Election Campaigns. EUSA Review Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer): 1, 3; 2004. Lodge, Juliet. Direct Elections to the European Parliament 1984. New York: St. Martins Press, 1986 Lodge, Juliet. The 1999 Elections to the European Parliament. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Reif , Karlheiz and Hermann Schmitt. Nine Second Order National Elections: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Election Results. European Journal of Political Research. Vol. 8; 1980. Tocqueville, Alexis. The Old Regime and the Revolution, vol. II, trans. Alan S. Kahan, Chicago: University Press, 2001

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