NDI's 100 Tips to Lose an Election


  1. CAMPAIGN

    • Stay home, do not campaign: everybody knows your party, your candidates, what you think and will go vote for you.
    • Ignore the electoral laws and regulations.
    • Do not register your candidates.
    • Ignore the electoral calendar and deadlines.
    • Do not attend OSCE or PIK meetings.

  2. TRAINING

    • Do not train your candidates nor party members, they know everything and do everything right.
    • You are too busy, too experienced to learn something ("you cannot teach new tricks to an old dog") and...
    • your country, your party and your candidates are unique.
    • Do not attend NDI training, since they are free they are worthless, and the experts they bring do not know our unique country, party and candidates!
    • If you cannot skip sending somebody, in order to please the "gringos" send somebody that has nothing else to do.

  3. ORGANIZATION & STRUCTURE

    • NO PLANNING
      • Work only for the short term, never think that there will be other elections.
      • Do not have a party nor campaign structures.
      • No planning committee, always improvise.
      • Never delegate, the candidate can do everything by himself.
      • Coordination meetings are boring, especially if they happen regularly and in the same place: change constantly, so people get lost and do not show up!
      • "To divide is to conquer," make sure that all your staffers hate each other and your family.
    • NO JOB DESCRIPTIONS NOR DEFINITIONS
      • Do not appoint professionals or experienced leaders, concentrate in appointing friends and relatives.
      • Do not consult the party and allies when choosing your campaign commando.
      • Do not have a Campaign President, so that nothing can be done when the candidate is not there.
      • No Campaign Manager to guarantee a permanent management and swift operation.
      • No campaign auditor in charge of verifying the follow-up of the decisions: it is thriving to wait until the elections to find out if everybody did what he said he would.
      • Forget Comrade Stalin's advice: "Confidence is good, control is better."
      • Nobody responsible of internal communications (phone, radios, messengers, faxes, etc.).
      • Do not write anything, especially instructions, the more confusion the better.
    • NO CONFIDENTIALITY
      • Everybody has the right to know everything.
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      • If you have bad news, share it with everybody, it works wonders against morale.
      • Share all your secrets with your adversaries.
    • NO CANDIDATE ACTIVITIES
      • Nobody responsible for the candidate's agenda, he must campaign anywhere, meet with anybody, always be unexpected, always surprise the party organizers and the potential voters [if he finds some].
      • If given the choice of traveling with important people (journalists, potential donors, opinion leaders, etc.) or friends, always choose friends.
      • When arriving somewhere, the candidate should stay with his friends: he is there only to deliver speeches, not to make direct contact with the people.
      • If he can be seen drinking (drunk if possible) with his buddies, good.
      • Even better than not having one person responsible for the agenda is to have many, so that the candidate has to be in different places at the same time.
      • Nobody responsible for the logistics, let the candidate organize his own transportation and itinerary.
      • Nobody should be responsible for the security of the candidate: if he gets hit it is good advertising, if he gets killed you are sure that he cannot win!
    • NO MONEY
      • No fundraising manager, we do not need money: campaign with the candidates personal money and/or with loans that will [not] be payed after the elections.
      • No finance director, a drawer full of money is much more practical.
    • NO COMMUNICATIONS
      • No Political Marketing Manager.
      • No press manager.
      • No campaign spokesperson.
      • Even better, many spokespersons that do not coordinate.
      • Nobody responsible for advertising, anybody should be allowed to design or place any ad.
      • Invest all your money in advertising, the other activities are tiresome, boring and eventually dangerous (Door to door? Buaaah!).
    • NO CAMPAIGN EXTERNAL RELATIONS
      • Nobody responsible for the relations between the campaign and the party.
      • Nobody responsible for the relations with other coalition members.
      • Nobody responsible for the relations with other parties.
      • Nobody responsible for the relations with grassroots organizations that could work or vote for your candidate.
    • NO VOLUNTEERS
      • Nobody responsible for volunteer recruitment.
      • Employees are easier to work with.
      • Nobody should be permanently at the office in case a volunteer shows up.
      • If a volunteer shows up tell him that you have nothing for him to do, you are too busy, ask him to come back after the election day!
    • NO VOTER TRANSPORTATION
      • You do not need to "Get out the vote," your voters are all going to register and vote by themselves.
    • NO POLLWATCHING
      • You do not need pollwatching, the OSCE, the PIK, the LECs and the other parties are going to make sure you get all your votes.
  4. CAMPAIGN STRATEGY

    • Do not analyze the problems of the country, or what people think: polls and focus groups are costly and useless, you know better.
    • If you do any public investigation, share it with your adversaries.
    • Do not propose a platform.
    • Do not prepare yourself to govern.
    • Do not target your potential voters according to sociodemographic criteria (age, sex, residence, etc.), proximity to other parties (hard votes, soft votes, undecided), interests (demobilized soldiers, pensioners, refugees, etc.), or information habits (radio, TV, rumors, etc.).
    • Do not pay attention to what other parties or candidates say.
    • Do not investigate your adversaries, they have never done anything wrong that could be disclosed.
    • Never change your opinions or your strategy or, even better, change it everyday in order to confuse your enemies, and your voters as well!
  5. COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

    • Do not define your product(s).
    • Never ask anything of anybody, not even their vote.
    • Do not have a distribution policy.
    • Do not use free media or advertising.
    • Never prepare yourself for an interview, a speech or a debate.
    • Do not investigate what the different Chief Editors or Journalists think or are interested in.
    • Why should you say in 30 seconds what you can say in 30 minutes?
    • Be funny, change constantly: It is boring to repeat constantly the same message, especially for those who travel with the candidate.
    • Tell anything to anybody anywhere, especially in the presence of journalists: the best speaker is the one who can convince of one argument and its opposite.
    • If you can lie do it often. If you do not, practice.
    • Do not chose any colors for the party, but if you do, do not wear them.
    • Do not chose an anthem or music to identify your party and your messages, that is only good for detergent commercials.
    • Never print your messages, so people can forget them faster and cannot take anything with them to convince other people.
    • Your candidate is so handsome that you should use as many different pictures of him as possible: only Coca-Cola does not change its bottle and logo.
    • Same with his clothes: disguisements are so funny, and people will love him with a hat and dark sunglasses, just like a drug dealer!
  6. CONCLUSION

    • People love you and working for you, never say thank you in any way, never motivate those who are working for you.
    • You can always try to use all these 100 tips but, believe us, you can succeed in failing with just a few!

PS: You are right, there are not a 100 tips, we left some space for the ones you are going to invent and be kind enough to send us...