Political marketing is a line of business traditionally associated with elections, when parties and pressure groups try to “sell” their candidate to the voters. This practice also comes in handy when it is time to sell government policies to the public and thus boost a government's approval rating and help it stay in office. In Egypt, there is a growing need for political marketing of public policy (PMPP), mostly because expectations often outstrip the government's ability to live up to them. In periods of transition, such as Egypt has experienced since January 2011, the political system is often fluid and uncertain, prompting many citizens to question the government's intentions and doubt its ability to deliver on them. This situation places more pressure on the government, which must come up with creative ways to persuade the public that it is on the right course, and this is where PMPP can help. The government, while grappling with its own structural problems, now finds itself wide open to criticism from the public, often voiced on talk shows or through social media. So what can it do? So far, the government seems to be relying on the president's undeniable popularity to navigate it through the troubled waters of public opinion. But a smarter way of PMPP would involve more than the effort of one man, however popular he may be. To shed light on the potential and aspects of PMPP, let's first review the main components of the process of selling public policy. These are the government, the policy, the mood and the communications. THE GOVERNMENT: The government is the main body marketing public policies. It does so through the political parties backing it, as well as through its own apparatus. In Egypt's case, the government has been met with limited success in its PMPP efforts, mainly because of two things. One is that it doesn't have the backing of a majority party. It has a majority of supporters in parliament, but they are too divided to come up with a cohesive policy to explain the government's actions and intentions to the wider public. Another reason the government is having trouble selling its policies is that it doesn't have capable spokespeople, or at least not enough of them. Since the Ministry of Information was scrapped during the period in office of then-prime minister Ibrahim Mehleb, the government has been functioning without a professional intermediary explaining its efforts to the public. Such a spokesperson is essential, for such a person would have the training, time and experience to keep the media abreast of the facts, as well as to fend off unfair criticisms and reassure the public that problems will not be allowed to fester unattended. In the current situation, the task of PMPP has fallen to ministers, few of whom have the necessary skills or time to engage with the media. Some ministries have appointed their own official spokespeople to carry out PMPP duties. Judging by a quick Google search on 6 December, I found that only 15 ministries had their own spokesmen. Some ministries seem to have more than one spokesperson, and some spokespeople leave their posts without being immediately replaced. THE POLICY: Following the June 2013 Revolution, the government gave initial priority to security issues, relegating everything else to the back burner. Then, when President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi was elected, he committed the government to mega-projects, such as the new branch of the Suez Canal, while trying to raise funds for such projects, streamline the government, improve public services and produce plans for sustainable development. Some government agencies, meanwhile, came up with their own brand of PMPP. For example, the Ministry of Finance has published simplified versions of the state budget for the past two fiscal years, with catchy titles such as “Know Your Budget,” or “Together We Walk Forward”. Despite these positive developments, the government has drawn flak over the opaque manner in which decisions have been made and the lack of societal participation. Other criticisms have highlighted questions of social justice and the long-term repercussions of government programmes. Some critics have said that the government has been “firefighting”, or offering palliatives without long-term solutions. Even when government officials have initiated dialogue with the public, critics have noted that either the wrong groups have been involved, or that the proposals have not been fully implemented. Debate over the civil service law in 2015 offers one example of such claims. Decentralisation has offered another opportunity for PMPP that has not been completely utilised. The government, its critics say, has not been delegating enough powers to local administration, and many of its decisions have been taken from its Cairo offices. For the record, the Egyptian government initiated an ambitious programme of decentralisation in 2007. But this programme fell into disuse after January 2011, and no effort was made to update the local government law until December 2015. THE MOOD: Because of the transition the country has been going through since 2011, there is a fluidity in the political scene, overlapping powers, contradictory policies, and a lack of clarity and consensus. Under these circumstance, the public is apt to accuse the government of sluggishness and indecisiveness. This is often done on talk shows and through social media. Furthermore, although the government received much praise for ousting the Muslim Brotherhood from power, supporters of the latter now have a heightened incentive to find fault with government policies. And activists who wish to see a consistent commitment to public freedoms have also been critical of some of the government's security-related measures. Generally speaking, privately owned satellite television channels seem to focus on the worst aspects of government policies. While invigorating the debate, social media — which are not subject to the same laws and regulations governing newspapers and television — do not always side with the government. As things stand, one senses a lack of objective grounds on which to evaluate public policies. In other words, there is not a clear method for asserting and testing the social and economic cost and effectiveness of these policies. Due to this omission, citizens cannot base their opinions on indisputable facts, but only on the hearsay of media outlets. Is there a way of reconciling fact and fiction? One could imagine a golden mean by which the government could act transparently and its full disclosure be rewarded by objective assessments in the media. THE COMMUNICATION: In recent memory, the government has made several attempts to improve its communications with the media and the public. When he was prime minister, Mehleb, for example, conducted field visits to various parts of the country, thus providing a modicum of interaction between the government and the public it aims to serve. Just as importantly, the ministries of the interior, foreign affairs, defence, education, health, supply, awqaf and finance all appointed their own spokespersons. Mehleb also met with ministerial spokespersons regularly to explain public policy, refute rumours and offer much-needed facts. His government also made inroads into the cyber world in an effort that has continued ever since. By 10 December 2015, 26 ministries had websites. Eleven of these were bilingual, in Arabic and English. The Foreign Ministry's website is trilingual (in Arabic, English and French). A 2015 report by the Support for Information Technology Centre (SITS), a rights group promoting freedom of information, looked into the quality of information posted on government websites. It concluded that the rate of disclosure on most of these was 50 per cent at best. On 6 December 2015, nearly 22 ministries operated pages on Facebook or similar sites. Two ministries had more than 500,000 followers, and five had more than 100,000. Although the government is relatively active on Facebook, few followers seem to offer comments on government pages, some of which haven't been updated for years. In December 2015, the Ministry of Planning launched “hokomty”, a mobile phone app offering public access to government services such as payment of water and electricity bills and traffic tickets. The government is planning to extend the services to all governorates, making it possible for the public to pay taxes and even rent commercial and residential units online. Furthermore, some ministries now have hotlines to receive citizen queries and requests. For example, you can call the Ministry of Manpower on 19468, Ministry of Education on 19126, Ministry of Health on 19153, Ministry of Supplies on 19280, and Ministry of Electricity on 19121. A public complaints portal was launched in March 2014 to receive grievances related to government conduct and transactions. But there is still a persistent impression that the government is not living up to expectations. This can be deduced from the disparity between the approval ratings of the government and those of the president. APPROVAL RATINGS: According to polls conducted by Baseera, the Egyptian Centre for Public Opinion Research, the approval rate of Mehleb's government (March 2014 to September 2015) hovered around 50 per cent for most of the time it stayed in office. During the same time, President Al-Sisi had an approval rating ranging from 80 per cent among those aged over 50, and 60 per cent among those aged 18-30. In an attempt to connect with the public, Al-Sisi met with the media in July and August 2014. In his encounter with the media in November 2015, following the arrest of Salah Diab, the owner of the daily newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, the president reassured the media, saying, “The country belongs to you, and no one can touch you. There are laws to which we all answer.” Still, Al-Sisi has not been above criticising the media, and during an army-organised gathering in the Al-Galaa Theatre in Cairo on 1 November 2015, he offered the view that the media was full of “catastrophes”. For the government to dispel the impression that it makes more promises than it delivers, it has to win back not only the heart of the public, but also its mind. For this to happen, it has to act transparently and with full disclosure of its plans and actions. When disclosing the reasons for a certain policy, the government must be aware of its impact on ordinary citizens. It must try to make the public, especially the young, feel that they have a say and stake in the future. For PMPP to work, the government must provide the political reasoning behind its decisions, especially those that touch on the economy. And this reasoning should remain consistent throughout. Furthermore, the public is not only interested in what the strategy is about, but it also wants to know whether the government is ready to clean up its act, remove red tape, and get the right bureaucracy in the right place to implement its policies. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: When you involve the public in decision-making, you make it by definition a partner in the future and a stakeholder that can monitor outcomes and offer feedback as needed. Involving the public in policy-making is more than a method to gain approval: it is a way of ensuring that policy, implementation and follow-up match the needs of society at large. The government should engage the public through its own media, the private media, the social media and the spokespeople it puts in place. If it is to keep the public well informed and confident, the government has to stay in touch all the time, offering facts and explanations, taking questions and dispelling misinformation. In order to do so, the government needs to bolster the state-run television channels and make them stand up to the competition from the satellite channels. The same goes for government-run radio and newspapers, which must focus on explaining facts and offering data and analysis that the public can trust. All crucial government agencies, not just ministries, should have their own spokespeople, and these must be capable professionals who know how to interpret situations, present data and field questions in a transparent and reliable manner. The prime minister should confer regularly with these spokespeople to minimise contradictions and iron out kinks in the public presentation of government policies. Government agencies must also have websites that are interactive, attractive, easy to access and continually updated. When needed, this barrage of information issued by the government should be supplemented with quality PR, either from local or from international companies. It should be recalled here that the family planning campaigns of the late 1980s and early 1990s used the media with flair and managed to curtail the population growth in the country. In 2008, another campaign was also successfully launched to inform the public of the same issue. One of the commercial spots created for this campaign offered clear reasoning for having less children. “Before we have a baby, let's make sure we can raise him right,” one advertisement declared. Some methods that have been used effectively here and in other countries deserve to be revived. For example, a monthly presidential speech assessing the state of the nation could go a long way towards shoring up the government's popularity. Another example is the post of an assistant prime minister for societal communication, which Ali Al-Salmi filled in the Essam Sharaf cabinet. This could also provide a much-needed boost to government liaison with the public. Another idea is for the president to hold periodic meetings with the heads of the parliamentary blocs, a practice that could defuse tensions between the executive and legislative branches and thus help the government explain and justify its programmes. If needed, Internet kiosks could be set up in youth centres and public areas to train the public on how to access e-government services. Specialised radio and television programmes could also be dedicated to this purpose. THE YOUNG: Creative teams could be formed in various government agencies to explore new angles for planning and implementing government policies. The young, in particular, should be encouraged to join such teams. This could well be in keeping with current government attempts to integrate the young into its top echelons. In September 2014, the prime minister decided that every minister should have four assistants between the age of 30 and 40. As a result, assistant ministers were appointed in 13 ministries, or a total of 41 young assistant ministers, including 17 women. Another batch of young faces is expected to come into office with the local council elections, in which one-quarter of the seats should go to the young, in accordance with the 2014 Constitution. The government's promise to appoint more assistant governors, assistant city mayors and assistant neighbourhood mayors could also add further thrust to this momentum. A NEW ROADMAP: Let's not forget that PMPP is not only for the domestic front. The government should also make sure to win the trust of its international partners and friends through a steady, open and reliable stream of information. If the government wants to improve our image abroad and attract foreign investors, it must form a high-level working group to make sure that foreign correspondents receive timely and reliable information and that the reasoning behind government policies is clear to Egyptian expatriate communities, including scientists and academics. Television documentaries may help in this regard, and periodic exchanges between Egyptian and foreign think tanks are also necessary. The president recently promised that he would come up with a new roadmap for the country, one to succeed the post-2013 roadmap that has now been completed. This new roadmap would be an occasion for greater public participation in policy-making.If debate about this roadmap were held in various governorates, this would help not only to keep the nation focused, but also to keep policy on the right track. In short, there is no shortage of PMPP methods. What matters is for the government to keep the public abreast of its intentions and policies every step of the way and to listen carefully and act accordingly. The writer is executive director of the Tawasol Centre for Youth Research and Studies.
