Asset-Herausgeber

Seminar

Leadership in Rough Times: Ethics and Political Campaigns

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Asset-Herausgeber

Details

The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), together with the Centrist Policy Institute (CPI), gathered several young politicians together to discuss the foundations of ethical leadership, as well as gathered together with several public relations and campaign polling industry experts for a workshop on gathering skills in running for public office.

Participants hailed from all across the country, who had aspirations to run in the upcoming 2010 elections at varying levels of government.

Dr. Dennis Gonzalez, Associate Dean of the Ateneo School of Government, emphasized the importance of having ethics in running for public office, and that political power without ethics will be destructive to others and oneself. He further stressed that political power without ethics becomes abusive and corrupt, which demoralizes constituents and creates mistrust. Dr. Gonzalez has previously given workshops on ethical campaigning together with KAS on its How to Win an Election project in 2006 and 2007.

The workshop also included sessions on improving media strategies, developing and building candidate profiles, identifying issues and developing issue and crisis management, as well as sessions on campaign ethics.

Seminar participants also received inputs from several public relations experts, which included Mr. Tony Abaya, managing director of Harris Black and Associates Research International; Ms. Malou Tiquia, founder and general manager of PUBLiCUS, the country’s first and only lobbying and political management firm; former German member of Parliament Mr. Klaus-Juergen Hedrich; Pangasinan Provincial Administrator Mr. Rafael Baraan; and Mr. Aurelio “Reli” German, president of Agents International.

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Proceedings of the seminar

The gathering of public relation titans and political campaign experts made possible a seminar for those aspiring candidates to get a glimpse of the inroads for a successful political campaign.

KAS Country Representative, Klaus Preschle presented the major results of research projects commissioned by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung during the 2004 and 2007 elections. He said that the influence of media, especially television, has become stronger and that a candidate who is depends solely on popularity and money has had a much harder time to win compared to a decade ago. Mr. Preschle presented examples where candidates pursuing political issues and creating political messages attractive to the voters were able to win even against incumbent political families. He also mentioned that the electorate has dramatically changed in the past 10 years and that success in the 2010 election will be determined by credibility, relevance of message, as well as communications and media skills.

Mr. Abaya identified and shared the challenges of the political landscape as well as the changes that have been observed and must be effected for a successful campaign. According to him, the major challenges that must be overcome include that of choice, recognition, and learning and of action. Meanwhile, changes that have been evident over the past years include that of the voting profile, the sentiments of the voters, their needs and preferences as well as political party alignments and affiliations on top of the leadership style, support from government and religious leaders as well as other external forces including the national government and OFWs. These factors and their effects need to be considered for success.

Meanwhile, Ms. Tiquia discussed the “what and the how” of political campaigns putting emphasis on indentifying and tailoring the entire campaign process to the target audience or voters. She put emphasis on the importance of knowing the demographics and psychographic profiles of voters to enable the seamless and effective crafting of a campaign strategy. She also tackled the milestones that an aspiring candidate must undergo in launching his or her candidacy and the campaign that follows from the pre-campaign period, the filing of candidacy to the actual campaign toward elections. Among the processes and tips that a candidate must undergo include a deep introspection about the purpose of running as well as the preparations needed for the candidate and his or her family. From this, Tiquia also cited the need for effective environmental scanning to gain knowledge on one’s electoral history, enemy as well as the issues that might arise from running. The meat of her talk constituted the development of a sound campaign plan that would start out with a striking and forceful campaign message. From this, having launched successful campaigns of famous people, Tiquia believed that “The seeds of political success are sown far in advance of any election day.” Apart from this, she also cited that luck also play a role in any campaign.

Illustrating what should be done and what should be avoided during the campaign was renowned PR consultant German. According to him, a candidate must not dissociate himself with the administration as there may be positive issues that could be relayed to the constituents. Apart from this, like Tiquia, German noted the importance of a clear and effective political message saying this is vital in the construction of a unified and identifiable image. He even cited the effective slogans bearing a clear and single message such as “Magsaysay is my Guy”, “Kaya natin to” and “Erap para sa Mahirap.” Among other things that German noted included the avoidance of a candidate to be too liberal in campaign materials as well as the extra caution that must be deployed in giving money or financial help. Apart from this, he also underscored the importance of not being overly confident as well as the sincerity that must lie in campaigning by looking at the faces or eyes of the people a candidate is campaigning with. German even stretched his watch outs to include the necessity of financial resources up to the campaign homestretch as well as the selection of campaign headquarters and poll watchers.

The second day of the workshop featured Mr. Francis Manglapus, the Executive Director of the Centrist Policy Institute taking a look back at the history of Christian Muslim Democracy in the Philippines. He especially highlighted the 1992 merger of the LAKAS TAO of former President Fidel Ramos, the National Union of Christian Democrats (NUCD) of Senator Raul Manglapus and the United Muslim Democrats of the Philippines (UMDP) of Ambassador Ching Ali as the significant milestone of practicing Christian Muslim democracy in the country. He also traced the beginnings of Christian democracy in the world including the main features of the ideology of the Centrist Democrat International (CDI) ending with its existence in the Philippine setting.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gonzalez tackled the characteristics and practice of ethical leadership in politics. He highlighted the need for officials to be ethical given the exercise of power they wield as necessary to the management of any organization. Because of this, he also put spotlight on the importance of being a transformational leader as embodying the virtues, ethics and inspiration for effective leadership. He also argued that ethics is needed in the power relations that exist between officials and citizens of a society as the absence of ethics leads to destructive effects with people being merely used as instruments of objects. In the campaign setting, Gonzalez provided tips on how to maintain self-knowledge through constant solicitation of feedback. Moreover, he left the audience with some reminders on seeking an ethical mentor as well as the need to establish a support group of peers striving to main ethical stance and behavior.

On the other hand, Mr. Jurgen-Hedrich talked about the relationship between credibility of candidate and the substance of the candidate’s program. Mr. Raffy Baraan, Provincial Administrator of Pangasinan drew from his notable experiences in managing Pangasinan as he explained the Success and Failure in Running a Political Campaign in its various stages.

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Zum Kalender hinzufügen

Veranstaltungsort

Bohol Beach Club, Panglao

Kontakt

Klaus Preschle

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Asset-Herausgeber

Bereitgestellt von

Auslandsbüro Philippinen