‘Engage public relations outfits to craft campaign messages’
The Minister of Communications, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, has called on political parties to seek the services of credible public relations outfits to craft campaign messages that would be devoid of character assassination and violence to ensure peace before and after the 2016 general elections.
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He said political campaign messages should be based on policies, objectives and focused on marketing candidates in the most effective manner to appeal to the electorate.
Dr Boamah was speaking at the 23rd Annual General Meeting of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) Ghana, held in Accra yesterday. The event was on the theme “Public Relations and Peaceful Elections: Your Role, My Role.”
Peaceful campaigns
Dr Boamah said because political parties lacked well structured public relations outfits and professionals to manage their communications, the use of abusive words, violence and personality attacks had dominated the political discourse.
“There is the need for purposeful and content-driven communication that would ensure that the process leading to the 2016 elections is carried out in a cordial manner to ensure peace before, during and even post-election,” he stressed.
In the light of this, he called on the IPR to constitute a professional body that would, “name and shame violent politicians” adding that “I look forward to the day when we would not need domestic election observers to monitor and evaluate our elections.”
He encouraged the public to seek accountability from politicians based on the promises they made during periods of campaign.
Effective communication
For her part, the President of IPR, Mrs Elaine Sam Kwami, explained that the theme was carefully chosen to reflect the role the public relations practitioners had to play to arrest the polarisation in the country created by partisan politics.
She said it was crucial for public relations practitioners to use effective communication to bridge the widening and entrenched positions in the political discourse which she said had the potential of disrupting the peace in the country.
“We may think differently, but there is the need to harmonise whatever differences we have so that the country would continue to enjoy peace. It is the role of professional communicators in the various political organisations and electoral bodies to up their game to achieve this,” she charged.
The occasion was used to officially admit four members into the APR and 11 people to the associate membership category.
Background
IPR Ghana is the professional body for public relations practitioners in the country. Established in 1972, it was called Public Relations Association of Ghana (PRAG), but was re-organised to what is today called IPR in December, 1991.
It has the core mandate of providing a professional structure for the practice of public relations in the country and the professional development of members.