Sustaining the electoral campaign means controlling times and messages, having the capacity to maintain the attention of potential voters with continuity. I have been thinking for weeks that the political parties are placing the focus more on the campaign than on the content that supports their party. This action would be more logical if we were already in the campaign itself but we've been like this for months and I think they should correct this method. If the campaign, or the campaigns, measure well the times and way of expressing proposals, politics wins and the party that knows how to support the electoral mode, too. This course will make it possible for politics to be itself a tractor project for a country, ours, Spain.
We are heading towards an intense, long and highly relevant electoral sequence. Municipal, regional, general and, next year, European elections. The sequence implies knowing how to plan in an orderly manner and at the same time with impact, interventions and declarations by the parties. What I sometimes observe is that the leaders and deputies of each political color are not aware of the exhaustion before the electoral call that the ordinary citizen can perceive if the "formula" of attention message in campaign mode far exceeds political work and to the contents traced from the quality more than from the impact.
If we add to this continuous model in action-reaction mode that the discourse is largely reduced to concealed accusations and insults, the citizen loses interest in the campaign itself and sometimes places all the parties and politicians in the same drawer.
Sustaining the campaign implies putting first in some sections, even before the bell for the official start of it rings and also knowing how to let go of the immediacy of set phrases to spend time, and times, to build well-done speeches in which the contents well assembled to the corresponding themes and events. I am sure that this is what the voters want: to know and to know. Knowing the programs and listening to more serene tones in the explanation of reasons for voting for one party or another.
During this time of elections, elections, elections and elections (municipal, regional, general and European) the parties should look closely at the horizon of the 2024 European Parliament elections. Now that citizens have every day the assurance that the European Union is and it impacts everything (vaccination against Covid 19, Next Generation EU recovery funds, European Green Deal, digitization, migration, responses to the war in Ukraine, Defense, European Strategic Autonomy...), political parties should be very aware of this continuous version of the campaign and include the European elections in its focus. I know that they do it internally but I am referring to what they say towards and at each electoral appointment.
In this year 2023 and around 2024, politics must become more interesting and, why not, vital for citizens. Maybe say vital..., but yes, I write it because what our vote marks decides in a real, resounding, clear way, in our day to day, in the present and future of our children.
During the sequence of campaigns, events occur, some of which can be controlled by the parties, others that no one can predict and burst onto the agenda like the next aberration that Putin decides to do or not (I won't name it, he doesn't deserve it) or an earthquake. devastating in Turkey and Syria.
Among the events that the parties control, I highlight the motion of censure presented by Vox. Here I am not going to stop to analyze the fact, but to make a call to all the political parties, allow me, so that once the motion is registered, they approach it with the view that it is a parliamentary instrument and that, therefore, the Government, PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos, Podemos, ERC, PNV…, all of them must prepare their best speeches, their most solid arguments. If they structure their approach like this from now on, the parliamentary discourse will be higher and the citizens will feel represented. To achieve this, the foundations of the institutions and the continuous guarantee of respect for our Constitution are essential springs.
I write with conviction that if the parties are capable of sustaining the campaign, democratic life will win and, of course, the electoral sequence will be more attractive to the eyes, and to the chosen ballot, of the voters. Supporting the campaign means having the power to bind and release, mantras, negative allusions, confrontations. Squeezing and giving visibility to the best of Politics is good for the credibility of citizens in politics, for the debate in our Congress of Deputies and in the Senate, and for the future of the Spanish people. Messrs. Deputies with great respect, I encourage you.
Susana del Rio
Director of the group of experts Convention on the Future of Europe, Fide. Director of cycle Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU. Academic Advisor of Fide.
Tribune originally published in EL CORREO
