A lack of a clear narrative

A TRULY great political campaign can be easily summarised.

A good campaign can be summarised into a sentence; a great one into a phrase; a truly magnificent one into a single word.

I tried my best to follow the state election campaign, but for the life of me I could not make out what (if any) the single overarching message was that the ruling coalition was trying to put across.

Given the ground that Pakatan Harapan has lost in these elections, and the low voter turnout, perhaps it is time to think a little more carefully about the ruling coalition’s communications strategy and approach.

In an article last week published exactly midway through the campaign period, political scientist Bridget Welsh made some interesting observations:

She wrote: “There is a lack of consistent and clear messaging Voters are finding it hard to connect to an unfocused stream of announcements. Unlike previous Barisan campaigns that had a clear theme and integrated the theme into its strategies, Hara-pan’s campaign as the federal incumbent is more ad hoc and its messaging is not well-integrated into the campaigns of individual states.”

She added: “At the same time, Umno, a partner in the federal coalition government, has not promoted a substantive campaign narrative at all. What has not happened to date is the articulation of a convincing narrative to the Umno grassroots on why they should be part of the coalition government. ... the campaign to date is not only defensive but disjointed.”

These words above really jump out and tell a compelling story: not consistent/clear, unfocused, ad hoc, not well-integrated, no convincing narrative, defensive, disjointed.

One individual, who I consider to be one of the most skilled and undervalued social media warriors that has traditionally been in the Pakatan camp, had some sarcastic comments published just a few days into the campaign period: “Post mortem conclusion: Pakatan is weak in social media, especially TikTok. Action plan: We have to improve our social media. Real Action: None. 5 years, 10 years, it’s all the same. Repeat, and repeat again.”

This post got over 500 shares, as I imagine many with similar leanings have felt the same frustration.

The opposite of what Welsh described could be said to be: unity of purpose, and a crystal- clear narrative. How can this be achieved?

Let me posit two types of leadership styles.

In Example A, you appoint multiple generals, give them roughly the same amount of power, and tell them all to accomplish the same goal.

Some leaders do this because they think: Each of my generals is putting all his energy into competing and they’re all trying to outperform one another and impress me; this way, I am the one who will benefit the most.

I think this type of strategy works well if you are, say, trying to get multiple coffeeshops to compete to offer you the lowest price for your cup of coffee.

If you try to appoint multiple generals to win a political communications war, however, what you will get is exactly what Welsh described above. People don’t get the message and are not moved to support you. At worst your supporters vote against you, at “best” they don’t vote at all.

In Example B, you don’t care about whether or not your underlings are working to impress you, or about the balance of power between yourself and your closest lieutenants. You only care about getting the job done.

Clear message: A good political campaign can be summarised into a sentence; a great one into a phrase; a truly magnificent one into a single word, says the writer. — SHAARI CHEMAT/The Star

In this example, you choose a much simpler, effective organisational structure. One that more closely resembles an actual military outfit, or even a corporate setup – one which features only one commander in chief, or CEO, with whom the buck stops.

Everyone else reports to that CEO in a clear, transparent, and precisely defined hierarchical pyramid.

This may not be the best kind of structure for, say, democratic decision-making in general when it comes to questions like public policy, building consensus for the nation’s direction, and so on.

But for my money, it is the best structure for achieving clearly defined goals in the field of political communication. It seems proven time and again that the alternative is dysfunctional chaos.

Example A is analogous to a bunch of musicians all told separately “Play a tune that sounds more or less like this, to get people dancing”. Various separate groups of musicians then start playing whatever they in their own minds think is the best dance music there is, all at the same time, with no effective coordination. You can imagine the cacophony.

Example B more closely resembles one single composer and conductor, who hands every single musician the sheet music that tells everyone exactly what to plan and when, before lifting his baton to ensure the correct, coordinated execution of his vision.

Whatever else, we can be assured that the music that is produced is coherent and clear. If it turns out that that music is not in fact the best dance music possible, you can simply change the conductor, and try someone else.

Even way back in 2018, what seems to have crippled Pakatan was the inability to compose a simple, compelling narrative that communicated to Malaysians what a Pakatan-led era was truly all about.

Humans understand the world through the lens of stories that they tell themselves.

If Pakatan-Barisan does not fill the void of this narrative with stories designed to inspire hope and unity, then Malaysians will invariably fall for other, older narratives – especially those that have always been dominant.

These include narratives that are often simply untrue, such as DAP controlling the government, the police and the economy; that Malay rights are being stolen from under their noses, and so on.

Voters believe these things not because there is overwhelming evidence to prove such things; but because the government has yet to tell a well-crafted, consistently narrated story that suggests otherwise.

Doing so requires a bold departure from business as usual. It requires foregoing the boring old blame game and incessant finger pointing, which will only result in what the social media warrior above predicted.

Only time will tell whether the powers that be will be complacent about retaining the power they have retained, or be proactively willing to make some serious, radical turnarounds.

Nathaniel Tan is a strategic communications consultant. He can be reached at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are solely the writer’s own.