Moving Closer to Constituents​: Citizen Perceptions of the 2015 Local and Regional Elections

Sunday, November 1, 2015

View downloads

In September 2015, Moroccans voted in the first regional and local elections since the 2011 constitutional revision. The one-year period between these municipal polls and the October 2016 legislative elections presents an opportunity for political parties to gather, analyze and respond to citizen reactions to the campaign period and to Moroccan elections more broadly. As part of its USAID-funded program to strengthen Moroccan political parties’ relationships with citizens, NDI facilitated a series of focus groups in November 2015, building on two earlier rounds of focus groups in 2014 and 2015 respectively, to identify citizens’ attitudes toward campaign strategies used in the 2015 municipal elections. NDI’s findings reflected that citizens had seen improvements during this election cycle, including less observable corruption, increased women and youth political participation and more sophisticated campaigns. Participants were particularly receptive to direct contact techniques, which had a demonstrable impact on their voting decisions. Using this data, political parties and candidates can enhance their outreach methods, platforms and policies to be more responsive to citizens’ concerns in anticipation of the upcoming legislative elections.

Copyright 2024 © - National Democratic Institute - All rights reserved