Activities of Civil Society Organizations

Election Campaigns Strategies for the Elections of the Iraqi Parliament

On January 27^th of 2010, and as part of the activities of the civil society organizations in Erbil city with regard to the parliamentary elections in Iraq, the Strategic Information and Research Center conducted a workshop under the title of (Political Campaign Strategies for the Iraqi Parliamentary Elections). A large number of media specialists, university professors, media agencies and the representatives of the Shams Network (the coordinators of the north east and Erbil Governorate) attended the workshop.

The main objective of the workshop was the mechanisms of a free, democratic and peaceful conduction of the political campaigns away from illegal and violent conflicts, in which media agencies play an extremely important role.

Four main topics were discussed in this workshop, on which the participants expressed their opinion to enrich those topics which included; political campaign theories, political campaigns from the legal and moral perspectives, the national role of the media agencies during the political election campaigns. The results of those topics included a number of questions that were discussed by the participants.

 The following suggestions and conclusions were the output of the workshop;

·        The adherence of the media agencies to the national security principles and considering the higher national interests.

·        The respect of the public interest by the media agencies. Public interest in this regard means the interests of the people.

·        Media agencies should present the security and police forces as institutions for all the people and all the political entities. Those forces should treat all the entities in the same way.

·        Media agencies should make people understand that the participation of people in the elections is a right.

·        Media agencies should present the positive and negative points of the previous elections for citizens. It is important to distinguish between this election and the previous one.