In early 2004 the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of The Gambia decided it needed to develop a communications plan. It identified five key reasons why such a plan was important.

• The IEC had limited resources, in communications as in all its work. A communications plan would allow it to focus those resources, human and material, on the areas of most importance. It would also help it to marshal its resources through preparing materials for distribution to the media. As far as possible the IEC would be able to be proactive in its relations with the media, rather than always reacting to requests. It would be able to put in the work preparing these materials at a time of its choosing, rather than in the busy period just before elections.
• Planning imposes discipline that would help the IEC to think clearly about its objectives, the messages that it wanted to get across and the different audiences for those messages. From there it could determine the most effective media for conveying those messages.
• Communications planning would allow the IEC to integrate all its communications work – not just media relations, but also voter education, contacts with political parties etc.
• Communications planning would ensure that all staff and commissioners communicated the same message to the outside world.
• A communications plan would help the IEC to develop a toolkit of techniques and measures that it could use in its media relations.

The IEC had already gone through a process of strategic planning, which placed it in a strong position to look at its communications needs. It adhered to the following sequence in its planning process, adapted from material produced by the Canadian organization, the Institute for Media, Politics and Civil Society (IMPACS):

• Situation analysis: organizational background
• Situation analysis: external environment
• Objectives of the IEC
• Communication objectives
• Target audiences
• Key messages
• Strategies
• Tactics
• Timing
• Timelines
• Spokespeople

The essence of this approach was that it looked at the strengths and weaknesses of the IEC, along with its communications objectives, before looking at specific messages and target audiences. Only once all this had been established, would they look at the specific techniques to be adopted.

Situation analysis: organizational background

Here the IEC addressed three questions:

• What is the mission of the IEC?
• How do you evaluate the past success of the IEC in performing that mission?
• What indicators do you have of your performance?

The IEC’s mission was to organize free and fair elections. The overall balance sheet was extremely positive, using indicators such as voter turnout, the reaction of international observers, and the reaction of political parties.

Situation analysis: external environment

The IEC then attempted to address questions about how it was perceived in the outside world:

• Is the IEC generally perceived as being effective and competent?
• Is the IEC generally perceived as being trustworthy and reliable?
• Is the IEC generally perceived as being independent?
• Is the IEC generally perceived as being approachable?
• Does anyone communicate messages hostile to the IEC?

It tried to answer these questions from the different points of view of the general public, the media and political parties. The conclusion was that the voters perceived the IEC in a generally positive way, with most of the negative perception coming from political parties. The view of the media was more mixed.

Organisational goals and key objectives

The next step was to situate the media coverage that the IEC sought within the framework of its overall goals and objectives. It identified its key goal as being to organize free and fair elections. There were a number of interim objectives, or steps on the way to achieving that goal:

• Comprehensive and fair registration
• Level playing field for campaign
• Fair party access to the media
• Informed electorate
• Peaceful, tolerant campaign
• High turnout
• Secrecy of ballot
• Orderly voting
• Transparency/accuracy/credibility of count
• Effective dissemination of results

Communications objectives

Next the IEC addressed a series of questions about how their communications would help to realize these objectives:

• What is the IEC trying to achieve through its communications campaign?
• What does it want people to do with the information provided?
• How will the IEC measure its success?

Target audience

Then the IEC looked at the nature of the audiences for its communications:

• What is the primary audience for the communications campaign? Can that be broken down into sub-groups?
• Are there secondary audiences for the IEC’s messages? If so, who?

It concluded that the primary audience was the entire electorate, but that this could be subdivided into urban and rural voters, who would need to be addressed in different ways, perhaps with somewhat different messages. There would also be particular messages to be conveyed to women voters and to young or first-time voters.

Secondary audiences included political parties, the media themselves (for example on reporting rules), international observers and governments in the sub-region.

Key messages

Communications planning for commercial enterprises, non-governmental organizations or even political parties usually requires a rigid prioritization of message. For EMBs, however, there are a multiplicity of messages, some of which need to be reiterated constantly, while others are specific to a particular period of the electoral cycle. The Gambian IEC identified the following messages as important:

• Don’t sell your vote
• Where you register is where you vote
• Who is entitled to vote
• Card is not for sale/no bribery
• Vote is secret
• Do not register more than once
• Respect other’s views
• Encourage women to vote
• When to vote
• Where to vote
• How to vote
• Have you registered?
• Nomination deadlines
• Campaign lull
• Exercise your right to vote
• Results

Strategies

To work out the best strategy for communicating the above messages to the identified target audiences, the IEC carried out a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). To see their conclusion, have a look at the SWOT-table on the right hand sidebar.

It was concluded that the communications strategy must be proactive. It was necessary to prepare clear messages in advance of when they might be used and thereby reduce the time it would take to respond to media inquiries.

Priority would be given to radio and to traditional media, including social communicators in the rural areas, since these are the media that reach the entire population. Television and newspapers, with an overwhelming urban audience, had a lower priority.

Tactics

Before determining the precise media techniques that they would use, the IEC considered:

• What was its communications budget?
• Was it possible to supplement that?
• What personnel resources were available?
• What were the other demands on their time? How much time would they be able to devote to external communications?

These techniques were identified as a priority:

• Pre-produced information broadcasts for radio (including mini-dramas). These could be prepared in advance and are re-usable with a long shelf life.
• Comprehensive media kit. This would be prepared in advance, distributed, and updated prior to the election. This would minimize incoming media queries.
• The website would re-use media kit materials, code of conduct, guidelines etc.
• Comprehensive updated media list.

Other techniques would also be used, but were of lower priority:

• Press releases
• Press conferences
• Paid newspaper advertisements
• Newspaper columns
• Letters/rejoinders/clarifications
• Response to inquiries.

Timing

The IEC next developed a timetable of dates that would determine when messages needed to be communicated. This was not just the next national elections, but also registration, by-elections and other events.

Timeline

Next, the IEC put together the information on timing, messages and techniques to create a specific plan stating what needed to be done when and by whom. The information is summarized in the table on timeline information on the right hand side.

Spokespeople

Finally, the IEC considered who should be responsible for communicating with the media. Past practice had been for the chairman of the IEC to be principal and often sole spokesperson for the commission. This was felt to be cumbersome and to slow down response time. While the chairman remained principal media contact, much of the day-to-day contact was to be devolved to staff. They and other commissioners were to receive training in media interview techniques.