Campaigning for National Campaigns

	USAID supports activities to reinforce political parties’ organizational structures and give them a comprehensive vision of a national political campaign, its centralization, its organizational strategies, and its message

Historically, electoral campaigns in Morocco have focused on individual candidates, leaving them to run the show relatively independent of their respective parties. This has resulted in a confused political landscape with more than 30 recognized political parties and MPs often changing parties between election periods. It is among the reasons that it is almost impossible for one party alone to win a majority of seats.

With elections on the horizon, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) organized a conference , with USAID support,, to address the reinforcement of parties’ organizational structures. A forum entitled, “Manage to Win: Planning and Organizing a National Election Campaign” provided parties with a comprehensive vision of a national campaign through the centralization of the campaign, its organizational strategies, and message.

Special focus was placed on the importance of a national campaign management team, which serves to design, coordinate and implement parties’ electoral activities. Through the presentation of real life case studies that can be translated into lessons applicable in the Moroccan context, the forum provided a comprehensive vision of a national campaign.

Moreover, it provided political party leaders and organizers with an overview of the organizational components and structures necessary for a national electoral campaign. This was then reinforced through a series of one-on-one meetings with five of the most prominent political parties. As a result, the four parties (the Union of Socialist Popular Forces, the National of Rally Independents, the Popular Movement and Party of Progress and Socialism-Al Ahd Party) benefiting from these individual private meetings, have adopted the use of national campaign management teams to manage their campaigns, resulting in the development and use of campaign platforms and messages. Only the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) had such a structure in place prior to the conference.

All of these campaign management teams have implemented the structure suggested by the experts, a sign of the parties’ understanding of the importance of election campaigns as a tool to connect with citizens. It will also help them to conduct electoral activities in an effective and coordinated manner, leading to more positive electoral results.

As one member of a newly created management team stated, “it has helped us to have a true national campaign; we feel we can fight a modern battle. Our society is more politicized through the mass media and it is more than time for Morocco’s political parties to take that reality into account.”