Since the 17th century, elections have been the mechanism on which modern representative democracy has been sustained. As processes where the electorate exercise their franchise or power of choice in seating their preferred candidates, elections are responsible for a periodic change or continuity of political leaders in the legislature, executive and sometimes the judiciary. Like every other system of filling political offices, political players, parties and stakeholders engage multiple election strategies to ensure the success of their vested interests, foremost of which is election consulting.

Sometimes referred to as campaign management consulting, election consulting is a definitive strategy that aids political players in running successful election campaigns. Election consulting agencies collaborate with other professionals such as media strategists, public relations managers, and political analysts to create and direct campaigns that perform multiple functions for a candidate’s electoral campaign.

Elections Consulting first originated in America, when republicans would employ external direct mail to reach out to voters. Due to its resounding success and significant grassroot impact, every American presidential campaign has employed the services of an election consulting agency since 1992. Obama’s win in his 2008 election campaign and his subsequent re-election are legendary and also largely attributed to how aptly his election consultants executed a strong campaign strategy, employing political technology to make high-order decisions that led to the eventual success of both campaigns.

Election consulting has since become a widespread campaign strategy, with political parties and their respective candidates, across countries and continents, employing it to turn the tides of electoral processes in their favour. Savvy African political players, like those in other parts of the world, enlist the services of election consulting agencies in Africa. In evaluating the role of election consulting agencies in Africa, in line with the modern political climate and in comparison to how effective they are in delivering campaign success, one would have to review their functions and consider a few case studies across the continent.

As key strategists behind the successful execution of political campaigns, election consulting agencies perform a wide range of targeted roles that employ expertise in finance, market research, data analysis, canvassing, and policy research amongst others. They analyze data (such as polls and surveys) to understand the desires of the voters, retrieving information on how well the candidate resonates with the target audience, voters’ desires and pain points and how well they respond to messaging presented by the candidate. In executing these multiple roles, election consulting agencies in Africa that are worth their salt, understand the major challenges the candidate (and in turn, their campaign) faces and offer strategic, finely tuned solutions that resolve the problem and goes further to shape a favourable opinion of the candidate with the public. The efforts of these election consulting agencies undoubtedly influence public opinion and therefore, the outcome of many campaigns.

In a modern representative democracy, public perception is a major determining factor in how receptive the populace is to political players and consequently, the outcomes of elections. What would happen when a political candidate has the goodwill of the people at heart and has the capacity to deliver on developmental plans but lacks the ability to communicate these to the populace effectively? An unsuccessful campaign, most likely. Except if otherwise turned around by strong, coherent messaging. A poignant example of this comes to mind. In 2019, President Macky Sall, the current President of Senegal, was running for a second term in office. His first tenure had delivered tangible progress to the Nation’s growth which included a significant reduction in the unemployment rate of the country and the construction of a new city that would solve the overpopulation problem in Dakar, the Nation’s capital. However, he was unable to communicate these gains in a message that connected with his people. With a country-wide scepticism towards the impact of his first tenure and a significant disconnect from a large population of voters, the success of his campaign appeared shaky at the early stages of the Presidential race.

The engagement of StateCraft Inc, a foremost election consulting agency in Africa by President Macky Sall’s campaign team, heralded a major turnaround for his campaign. Employing a multi-pronged approach that was based on a catchy, visionary slogan – Un Sénégal pour tous (A Senegal for all) – the Statecraft team developed a coherent message that communicated his previous achievements as well as his next term vision. They then proceeded to dispense and amplify it across socio-cultural platforms that made the populace connect deeply with the message. The Results? Figures released by the National Vote Counting Commission (CNRV) on Thursday, 28 February 2019 showed that President Sall won outrightly in the first round of voting with a 58.27% lead.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Nigeria during its 2015 Presidential elections. The Nation’s current President, President Muhammadu Buhari had tried three times before and encountered terrible failure at each attempt. He was a political player with a history of being an authoritarian military leader whose past rule was associated with dictatorship, Nigeria’s stiff austerity controls, economic hardship and a reputation as an ethno-religious bigot – factors that had successfully hindered his emergence as a democratically elected leader in Nigeria. With Nigeria’s large voting demographic of a politically evolved generation, it was deemed impossible for this retired general to work his way up from a mere cult following in one region to national prominence and acceptance.

In 2014, General Buhari and the leadership of the newly formed coalition, All Progressives Congress (APC) engaged the election consulting services of a leading election consulting firm in Nigeria, StateCraft Inc. to spur his reputation transformation from tyrannical ruler to a reformed democrat and ultimately execute a campaign strategy that for the first time ever, unseated a younger and more educated incumbent. StateCraft Inc. expertly guided his campaign away from its usual shortfalls towards resounding success at the polls and into the Presidential Villa with record-breaking acceptance from the same populace that had despised him only 12-months prior.

Because of their remarkable ability to give candidates a head start, foster momentum, and enhance the chances of eventual victory at the polls, election consulting firms in Nigeria/Africa, like StateCraft Inc, have grown in prominence and their engagement by political players have been proven to be a compelling way to emerge victorious in local, subnational and national political elections.

As is evident in the case studies cited earlier and in several other examples across the African continent, election consulting agencies can help deserving political candidates command public faith and trust by aligning popular aspirations with their perceptions and visions. All across Africa, and particularly in Nigeria as the nation gears up for a charged election season, the time has come for more political players and stakeholders to take advantage of the pathway to electoral victory presented by election consulting agencies in Nigeria/Africa and give them bigger leeway in playing a more central role in positively shaping the landscape of modern-day elections as we know it.

Since the 17th century, elections have been the mechanism on which modern representative democracy has been sustained. As processes where the electorate exercise their franchise or power of choice in seating their preferred candidates, elections are responsible for a periodic change or continuity of political leaders in the legislature, executive and sometimes the judiciary. Like every other system of filling political offices, political players, parties and stakeholders engage multiple election strategies to ensure the success of their vested interests, foremost of which is election consulting.

Sometimes referred to as campaign management consulting, election consulting is a definitive strategy that aids political players in running successful election campaigns. Election consulting agencies collaborate with other professionals such as media strategists, public relations managers, and political analysts to create and direct campaigns that perform multiple functions for a candidate’s electoral campaign.

Elections Consulting first originated in America, when republicans would employ external direct mail to reach out to voters. Due to its resounding success and significant grassroot impact, every American presidential campaign has employed the services of an election consulting agency since 1992. Obama’s win in his 2008 election campaign and his subsequent re-election are legendary and also largely attributed to how aptly his election consultants executed a strong campaign strategy, employing political technology to make high-order decisions that led to the eventual success of both campaigns.

Election consulting has since become a widespread campaign strategy, with political parties and their respective candidates, across countries and continents, employing it to turn the tides of electoral processes in their favour. Savvy African political players, like those in other parts of the world, enlist the services of election consulting agencies in Africa. In evaluating the role of election consulting agencies in Africa, in line with the modern political climate and in comparison to how effective they are in delivering campaign success, one would have to review their functions and consider a few case studies across the continent.

As key strategists behind the successful execution of political campaigns, election consulting agencies perform a wide range of targeted roles that employ expertise in finance, market research, data analysis, canvassing, and policy research amongst others. They analyze data (such as polls and surveys) to understand the desires of the voters, retrieving information on how well the candidate resonates with the target audience, voters’ desires and pain points and how well they respond to messaging presented by the candidate. In executing these multiple roles, election consulting agencies in Africa that are worth their salt, understand the major challenges the candidate (and in turn, their campaign) faces and offer strategic, finely tuned solutions that resolve the problem and goes further to shape a favourable opinion of the candidate with the public. The efforts of these election consulting agencies undoubtedly influence public opinion and therefore, the outcome of many campaigns.

In a modern representative democracy, public perception is a major determining factor in how receptive the populace is to political players and consequently, the outcomes of elections. What would happen when a political candidate has the goodwill of the people at heart and has the capacity to deliver on developmental plans but lacks the ability to communicate these to the populace effectively? An unsuccessful campaign, most likely. Except if otherwise turned around by strong, coherent messaging. A poignant example of this comes to mind. In 2019, President Macky Sall, the current President of Senegal, was running for a second term in office. His first tenure had delivered tangible progress to the Nation’s growth which included a significant reduction in the unemployment rate of the country and the construction of a new city that would solve the overpopulation problem in Dakar, the Nation’s capital. However, he was unable to communicate these gains in a message that connected with his people. With a country-wide scepticism towards the impact of his first tenure and a significant disconnect from a large population of voters, the success of his campaign appeared shaky at the early stages of the Presidential race.

The engagement of StateCraft Inc, a foremost election consulting agency in Africa by President Macky Sall’s campaign team, heralded a major turnaround for his campaign. Employing a multi-pronged approach that was based on a catchy, visionary slogan – Un Sénégal pour tous (A Senegal for all) – the Statecraft team developed a coherent message that communicated his previous achievements as well as his next term vision. They then proceeded to dispense and amplify it across socio-cultural platforms that made the populace connect deeply with the message. The Results? Figures released by the National Vote Counting Commission (CNRV) on Thursday, 28 February 2019 showed that President Sall won outrightly in the first round of voting with a 58.27% lead.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Nigeria during its 2015 Presidential elections. The Nation’s current President, President Muhammadu Buhari had tried three times before and encountered terrible failure at each attempt. He was a political player with a history of being an authoritarian military leader whose past rule was associated with dictatorship, Nigeria’s stiff austerity controls, economic hardship and a reputation as an ethno-religious bigot – factors that had successfully hindered his emergence as a democratically elected leader in Nigeria. With Nigeria’s large voting demographic of a politically evolved generation, it was deemed impossible for this retired general to work his way up from a mere cult following in one region to national prominence and acceptance.

In 2014, General Buhari and the leadership of the newly formed coalition, All Progressives Congress (APC) engaged the election consulting services of a leading election consulting firm in Nigeria, StateCraft Inc. to spur his reputation transformation from tyrannical ruler to a reformed democrat and ultimately execute a campaign strategy that for the first time ever, unseated a younger and more educated incumbent. StateCraft Inc. expertly guided his campaign away from its usual shortfalls towards resounding success at the polls and into the Presidential Villa with record-breaking acceptance from the same populace that had despised him only 12-months prior.

Because of their remarkable ability to give candidates a head start, foster momentum, and enhance the chances of eventual victory at the polls, election consulting firms in Nigeria/Africa, like StateCraft Inc, have grown in prominence and their engagement by political players have been proven to be a compelling way to emerge victorious in local, subnational and national political elections.

As is evident in the case studies cited earlier and in several other examples across the African continent, election consulting agencies can help deserving political candidates command public faith and trust by aligning popular aspirations with their perceptions and visions. All across Africa, and particularly in Nigeria as the nation gears up for a charged election season, the time has come for more political players and stakeholders to take advantage of the pathway to electoral victory presented by election consulting agencies in Nigeria/Africa and give them bigger leeway in playing a more central role in positively shaping the landscape of modern-day elections as we know it.