Political campaigning 2007 style

The year 2007 is very important because it is the year which signals the beginning of the general election campaign. However, we are living in a time of fast changes and political campaigning for the next general election is bound to be somewhat different to what we were used to in the past.

The first important difference is that the Nationalist Party in government is using a rather innovative approach to campaigning. I am referring here to the American-style political tactic of including the wives of politicians in public party activities, especially the wife of the Prime Minister. This is not something totally new on the local political scene but the increased extent of its use and the planning behind it is.

Make no mistake about it, my friends, the women behind the powerful men will win quite a number of votes for the PN. The wives of politicians bring that softer touch to political life which many voters will find appealing. This is especially true in the case of traditional "floaters" and other undecided voters.

Another new factor in political campaigning is the increase in door-to-door visits. I personally know candidates who have been visiting the homes of their constituents on a regular basis since just a few months after the 2003 general election. One particular candidate has even been knocking on doors on a daily basis for this whole period of time! Again, door-to-door visits are not something new but the extent of the commitment of candidates to meet constituents face-to-face is. The administrations of our political parties have long realised that personal contact is far more important than tons of propaganda material and they have been encouraging candidates to make door-to-door visits a regular ongoing process and not one restricted to the few months before a general election.

This does not mean that other forms of political propaganda are not important. In fact, another innovative aspect of political campaigning for the next general election will surely be the massive use of the internet by all the political parties involved. As I have already pointed out in an article I published online, the problem here is that this is a limited political tool given that a substantial part of the Maltese population still does not make use of the internet in daily life. However, the internet will be a potent tool in political campaigning where transmitting the party's message to youthful voters is concerned, given that many youths make use of the internet on a daily basis.

The other usual aspects will, of course, continue to form part of general election political campaigning as we have known it in the past. There will be the mass meetings as well as the intensive use of television, radio and the print media for political propaganda purposes. Even here, though, we shall have a certain amount of innovation. Those members of the population eligible to vote at the next general election will, in their vast majority, be the most educated ever electing a Maltese government to power.

Indeed, a far cry from the days when many voters could be so easily manipulated by politicians because of the former's lack of education, so badly needed to sift between actual facts and partisan propaganda.

This means that the political parties will have to transmit their messages to potential voters in a way that will respect, above all, their intelligence. Today, there is a marked decline in the number of people who will be taken in by shallow promises, distortion of the facts, baseless attacks on the major opposing political party and imaginary pre-election scandals. The victorious political party will be the one that can convince an intelligent and analytical voter that what the other political party/parties can do, it can do better.