News

06/08/2024

Strategies and tools for successful municipal election campaigns

Review of the virtual workshop of the working group "Women's Leadership in Municipalities" on 29 July 2024

Photo: Connective Cities

Planning a successful municipal election campaign involves several key elements that include understanding the political landscape, developing a campaign strategy, building a strong campaign team, creating a compelling message, fundraising, outreach and engagement, as well as utilizing media and technology. To delve into these topics, a workshop was held on the 29th July 2024 as part of the working groups’ activities. The workshop introduced the necessary strategies, tools, and practical steps to build successful election campaigns that bring women into leadership positions in municipalities. By showcasing experience from Germany and Lebanon, the participants have also discussed the challenges and obstacles that female candidates may face and ways to overcome them.

 
Dr. Ursula Sautter, city councilor and deputy mayor of the city of Bonn, shared her experience on the road to leadership. Being raised in a family with female politicians, she was inspired to embark on this journey. She presented to the participants the key elements that shaped her success including researching and communicating with the constituency via door-to-door canvassing and visiting local clubs and associations. She also highlighted the importance of family support and strong helpers team that assisted her in designing and distributing campaigning materials such as flyers and posters. Social media was also employed during the campaign to amplify the outreach.

 

Victoria El-Khoury, former member of the municipality council of Sin El Fil in Lebanon, made the decision to run for election after assessing three key aspects: 1) the personal drive behind running as a candidate, 2) preparedness, 3) support of the direct family. She mapped her potential enabling environment to determine with whom to create a coalition and how to leverage support. To understand the priority needs of the constituency, public discussions, townhall meetings and focus groups were held and questionnaires were distributed. She also conducted extensive field visits to obtain personal observations. She emphasized the importance of ‘get-out-the-vote’ by encouraging supporters to vote early, and having a plan to get supporters to the polls on election day as part of the election day operations.

Technical advisory was also provided and discussed with the participants on 1) developing campaign strategies within the legal and regulatory frameworks, 2) approaching the electoral environment and organizing community events based on participatory principles, 3) creating media plans, collaborating with diverse media outlets, and creating impactful messages, as well as 4) financial and technical management of campaigns.

The workshop was highly interactive with requests to hold a session dedicated to public speaking strategies. The rich experiences showcased in the activities of this working group is inspiring participants to transfer the good practices to their contexts particularly on bridging the societal trust gap, campaigning and lobbying strategies, as well as legislative reforms of municipal election laws.

Further information:

Recording of the workshop on Connective Cities platform


Author:
Muna Shalan, Connective Cities


Related Content

Top