Assisting Liberal Parties AbroadLessons learned and future prospects

Department Political Consultancy & International Policy Analysis (Ed.)

Assisting Liberal Parties AbroadLessons learned and future prospects

Inhouse Conference

28th – 29th September 2009

Potsdam, Germany

Department Political Consultancy & International Policy Analysis (Ed.)

Picts Front Page:top left: Otto Guevara, RELIAL-Kongresstop right: Helen Zille, Demokratic Alliance, Südafrikabottom left: Sam Rainsy, Cambodiabottom right: Eduardo Montealegre, Nicaragua

Contents

Introduction – executive summary 5 Dr. Gabriele Reitmeier, Head Department for Political Consultancy & International Policy Analysis

1. Welcome, conference outline and objectives 9 Harald Klein, Director International Politics, FNF, Potsdam

2. International party assistance – new agenda and 13 unsolved problems? Gero Erdmann, Director Berlin-Office, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Berlin

3. Twenty years of political consultancy by FNF 23 Peter Schröder, Political Consultant, Siegburg

4. Project scope: Analysis of four liberal parties from 37 new EU memberstates in Eastern Europe Ulrich Niemann, Regional Director Central, East and Southeast Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia, Sofia

5. Panel Discussion: FNF party-assistance and democracy 39 promotion around the globe Participants: Athol Trollip, Parliamentary Leader of the Democratic

Alliance, Cape Town Nereus Acosta, former Congressman, Secretary General CALD

(Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats), Manila Eduardo Montealegre, MP, President ”Movimiento

Vamos con Eduardo“ , Managua Dr. Osama Ghazali Harb, President Democratic Front Party, Cairo Arto Aas, Head of Prime Minister’s Office, Tallin

6. An US-view on effective party–assistance 58 Daniel Cohen, Political Consultant, United States

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7. The bilateral NIMD-approach of strengthening political parties 59 Jasper Veen, Regional Director Africa, Netherlands Institute for

Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), The Hague

8. Working Groups‘ Recommendations 66

WG 1: General benchmarks for FNF’s co-operation with liberal parties abroad.

WG 2: FNF instruments in support of liberal parties abroad. How can we increase their effectiveness and efficiency?

WG 3: International co-operation of liberal parties under scrutiny

WG 4: Political Communication / Political Marketing

Annexes 76

Programme

Participants list

Speakers’ bios

Guiding questions for working groups

Introduction – Executive summaryCooperating with and promoting political parties plays a prominent role in the in-ternational activities of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation für die Freiheit (FNF) and forms part of its core mandate and main areas of expertise.

In almost all of the FNF’s 60 offices outside Germany, there are ongoing activities aimed at strengthening democratic party structures and procedures. In these coun-tries FNF encounters a vast array of different types of political parties at varying levels of institutionalization. The position of parties within the political system also varies (government vs. opposition). This makes it essential to tailor project activities to the specific context.

Parties are supported directly and indirectly. Indirect party support focuses on the parties’ environment and promotes such democratic principles as the rule of law, the separation of state powers, and political liberty. Direct party support aims to strengthen the party organization, develop liberal policies, establish participation and democracy within the parties, improve political communication both internally and externally, and build stronger links between the parties and broader society.

Promoting political parties is not an objective in itself, but an important means to the ultimate goal of enhancing a modern representative democracy along with its principles, procedures and institutions. Democracy can only work when parties are able to exercise their classical functions – mobilizing and articulating the political interests of citizens, acting as a link between the state and its citizens, recruiting and training elites for executive and legislative positions, and exercising a check on government. Research into political parties has also shown that there is a direct link between the efficiency and stability of parties and the party system on the one hand and the quality of democracy on the other hand. Therefore, party assistance has to be seen as part of a holistic approach to promoting democracy.

The FNF can now look back on more than 20 years of experience in promoting and cooperating with political parties on a global scale. During this time, we have seen radical polical changes worldwide – symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the attack on New York’s twin towers on 11th September 2001. During this time, competition in the field of international political consulting has grown fierce, and the FNF has to equip itself to compete successfully.

Against this backdrop, the time is right for a thorough stocktaking of FNF party activities. To begin with, the foundation has to assess whether its strategies and concepts are still valid; secondly, it must determine whether the efficiency of its

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key instruments (political consulting, political dialogue and political education) and methods can be improved. Thirdly – and this is perhaps the most difficult un-dertaking – the FNF has to ask about the outcome and impact of its activities in the field of party cooperation and party promotion.

For this purpose, project managers, political consultants and representatives of partner parties gathered for two days (28th and 29th September 2009) at the FNF headquarters in Potsdam, Germany, and attended an in-house conference titled “Assisting liberal parties abroad – lessons learned and future prospects”, hosted by the Department for Political Consultancy & International Policy Analysis within the International Politics Division at the FNF head offices in Potsdam.

The following strategic recommendations were drafted during these two days. They are of utmost importance for future activities in this field and will be followed in 2010 by an evaluation of the FNF’s party cooperation and promotion activities, as well as by an update of the FNF´s “Concept for Political Consultancy”:

➤ Criteria for starting and ending cooperation with a party

Before embarking on a long-term commitment with a political party, the FNF should require that the following conditions are met:

– a party platform which cover key liberal issues (individual rights, separation of church and state, market economy etc.), or policies which at least show a visible liberal orientation (this validation of liberal values should be a deciding factor),

– a stable organizational structure,– a pool of active members, – transparent and democratic internal procedures.

The FNF should end its cooperation with a party in the event that:

– the party’s ideology changes to the point where it is no longer liberal (as in the case of Mel Zelaya in Honduras),

– a reputational risk exists for FNF (e.g. in the case of corruption),– the party suffers "electoral death“,– it becomes clear that the party needs an unreasonable timeframe to mature

into a liberal party.

A party’s membership in Liberal International (LI), however, should not automati-cally lead to cooperation with FNF, as LI nowadays has more than 100 member-parties covering a broad ideological spectrum. At the same time, membership in

another international party federation should not automatically lead to an end of cooperation with the FNF.

➤ Instruments (political consulting, policy dialogue, political education)

– The three instruments need to be coordinated better when applied in the field of party cooperation and promotion.

– Seminars for high-level politicians need to take place in Berlin to give participants the chance to meet with liberals in the federal legislative and executive.

– IAF programmes should address issues of specific relevance to political parties like coalition building, working in opposition, campaign techniques, the internet as a tool for political communication etc.

– Interregional exchange programmes should be facilitated on an experimental basis (e.g., programmes between South Africa and India or Brazil).

➤ Methods: A new approach to political consulting Each cooperation with a political party should start off with a strategic planning

workshop. During this workshop a rigorous appraisal of the current situation (strengths, weaknesses etc.) has to be conducted and a clear long-term strategy (4-5 years), including a time action plan, needs to be developed. It is important that the strategy also covers the time between elections. Annual “milestones” for assessment and adjustment should be laid down. This new approach to political consultancy can lead to greater effectiveness and efficiency because it places cooperation between the FNF and the party on a more long-term, continuous footing.

➤ Monitoring implementation The implementation of recommendations by political consultants has not been

satisfactory, and monitoring needs to be intensified in this area. Possible tools include: agreements with the partner party on objectives, regular talks with an appropriate party representative, reports by the FNF project manager and forwarded to the regional office and head office, opportunities for dialog during regional meetings.

➤ Outcome and impact: the need for clear indicators and evaluations A common set of reliable indicators for measuring the success ore failure of FNF

party cooperation and promotion is still lacking. Possible indicators for success

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include: organisational reform of the party, the existence of liberal policies, the number of parliamentary initiatives, or elections results.

➤ A new approach for successful partner parties The FNF needs to come up with a new approach for working with partner parties

that have shown significant progress and are willing to share their experiences with other liberal parties. The Reform Party in Estonia and South Africa’s De-mocratic Alliance fall into this category.

➤ Training in political communication Political communication is a core skill for political parties. The FNF should be

at the cutting edge of political communication and should intensify training activities for local media specialists among its staff members. They can then assist the FNF in its work with parties.

➤ Party promotion activities need to be more contextualized Parties operate in a complex environment that is influenced by political, societal,

cultural and historical factors. All these factors need to be taken into account when designing forms of cooperation, which means that there is no generic, one-size-fits-all strategy for all countries or all parties. The FNF still tends to apply the same solutions everywhere or copies experiences from other countries. But each situation is different, and if assistance is to be effective, it has to be tailored to specific contexts.

Dr. Gabriele ReitmeierDepartment Head Political Consultancy & International Policy Analysis Potsdam, December 2009

1. Welcome, conference outline and objectives

Harald Klein, FNF, Director International Politics

Dear guests and friends of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation für die Freiheit.

It is my great pleasure this morning to welcome you on the occasion of our inhouse conference “Assisting liberal parties abroad – lessons learned and future prospects” here in our head office in Potsdam. I want to express my thanks that you have un-dertaken quite long journeys to share these two days with us.

The first organisations to enter the scene of international party assistance in the beginning of the 60th were the political foundations of Germany. For more than forty years by now they have established a solid and trustworthy relationship with political parties all around the globe, which are based on mutual confidence and respect. Very characteristic for the German political foundations is and has always been their partisan approach, meaning that their assistance is exclusively directed to parties which are ideologically close to them, which share their respective po-litical values and concepts.

Party-assistance underlies certain legal restrictions defined by the local laws of the project countries but also by our donors and the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Strictly prohibited are:

➤ direct financial transfers to political parties,

➤ direct financial support for election campaigns,

➤ institutional support for political parties,

➤ publicity for a specific party.

Meanwhile some other important players in the field of party-assistance do exist, however they have been founded much later and they follow a multi-party approach. This means, that they are co-operating with all parties in parliament and aiming at strengthening the party system in general and/or at improving the framework conditions for political parties. The most prominent ones are European foundations like the Westminster Foundation in London, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) in The Hague and International IDEA in Stockholm.

FNF – party assistance

Of all the party-related German foundations, the FNF was the first by far to engage in systematic and focused party support. After early initiatives in Southern Europe

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in the 1970s – mainly in Spain and Portugal – it was in South America where the FNF’s expertise and support, along with that of its political consultants, was most in demand in the early 1980s. In Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, the military dic-tatorships had been overcome and the construction work had started on liberal-democratic multiparty systems. In Chile and Paraguay, the focus was on strengthe-ning the liberal forces opposing the dictatorships, until they too were overthrown in that momentous year, 1989.

After 1989, the year in which events of geopolitical importance initiated the col-lapse of communist authoritarian regimes worldwide, liberal democracy triumphed on an unprecedented scale. In the course of this process political parties gained influence in the new democracies across the globe. Against this backdrop, the FNF focused its worldwide activities on the political arena, especially on promoting and cooperating with liberal organisations.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Soviet communism, the geographi-cal focus of party cooperation shifted more and more to the countries of Middle, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Here, too, liberal parties made decisive con-tributions to strengthening political liberties and building stable democracies. At the same time, the end of the east-west conflict also opened new possibilities for cooperation with Asian parties – first in South Korea, then progressively in the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. In Africa, many countries experienced the end of one-party rule and their first free elections at the beginning of the 1990s. This meant the time had come for the FNF to start working with liberal forces in countries such as Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, and South Africa. It was only very recently that cooperation was initiated with liberal parties in Arabic countries such as Morocco, Egypt and the Lebanon. In all regions, bilateral cooperation with parties is now accompanied by collaboration with liberal party networks.

The strategic principles and aims for it’s party-assistance activities are stipulated in the Foundations’ “Strategy for activities abroad”, which defines party assistance as one out of three overall objectives of the Foundation. Besides that the “Concept of Political Consultancy” defines the areas of consultation and the target groups.

The Foundation’s core instruments – political consultancy, political dialogue and civic education – are of crucial importance also in the party-assistance pro-grammes.

Political consultancy is primarily conducted as work in progress by our project directors on the ground. Strategic consultancy however is only provided by hand-picked experts from Germany. They are practicioners with a long experience in in-

ternational consultation and party-work within the Liberal Party of Germany. Their assignments have increased quite significantly over the last years. Some of them are here with us in this conference.

But also the political dialogue at an international and regional level has gained more and more importance due to the fact, that many problems of the 21st century ask for solution beyond national boundaries. The bilateral cooperation of liberal parties with Liberal International (LI) is complemented at a regional level. FNF is proud to have succeeded in establishing networks of liberal parties in mostly all regions of the world:

➤ the African Liberal Network (ALN),

➤ the Council of Liberals and Democrats (CALD) in Asia,

➤ the Network of Arab Liberals (NAL),

➤ and the Liberal Network of Latin America (RELIAL).

On top of that the Foundations’ Dialogue Programme Brussels (DPB), it’s Transat-lantic Dialogue Programme (TAD) and the International Academy for Leadership (IAF) offer platforms to spread liberal ideas and reinforce organized liberalism.

Objectives of the conference

Having been active in the field of party-assistance for more than twenty years we feel an urgent necessity of undertaking a thorough stocktaking. Twenty years is a very long time in political life. In this time we have seen:

➤ Fundamental changes in world politics:

the collapse of Socialism in 1989/90 and the attack on the twin-towers of New York on 11st September 2001 have probably been the two events with the most far-reaching consequences.

➤ As a consequence party-systems of many countries have changed from one-party to multy-party systems.

➤ An increasing competition in the field of party-assistance and political consul-tancy.

We have to assess whether our strategies and concepts are still valid and if and where we have to undertake modifications. We also have to assess whether we still can improve the efficiency of our instruments and methods. Thirdly – and this is perhaps the most difficult undertaking – we have to ask about the outcome and

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impact of our party–assistance. The recommendations which will be drafted during this conference will be oft utmost importance to us.

Last but not least, this conference offers a good opportunity for inhouse-learning, meaning the exchange of experience and best-practice between our colleagues abroad but also with party representatives and political consultants.

I wish you all very interesting two days and I thank you for your attention.

2. International Party Assistance: New Agenda and Unresolved Problems?

Gero Erdmann, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Berlin

I. Old or new agenda?

The first question I will address is: How old or new is international party assistance? The answer is twofold: It is (1) partly old and (2) partly new.

(1) Partly old:

We have been familiar with international political party aid for a long time. Since the formation of the international political party associations in the nineteenth century we have been familiar with international party-to-party assistance. It star-ted with the Second Socialist International in (1889).

In the 1960s political party aid was being provided by German political foundations – long before we talked about or used the terms democracy promotion or political party assistance as we do today.

However, one major problem concerning this former type of party assistance is that most of the experience gathered during that time seems to have been lost; hardly any written sources survived that could tell us something about how the practice of granting political party aid was carried out, what strategies were used, and why and when. We know very little about successes and failures. There are only a few accounts of the work of the foundations; one is a published booklet about the work of a particular foundation on one continent (Africa), and others are (unpublished) evaluation reports on the general work of the German foundations in two countries (South Africa and Chile, viewed as success stories) commissioned by the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in 1995. However, political party as-sistance was only one aspect, among many others, of the work of the foundations during the 1970s and 1980s.

(2) Partly new:

Political party assistance is new, since it was ‘discovered’ very late as a special com-ponent of democracy promotion. During the 1990s, the high days of democracy promotion, civil society assistance was the dominant issue; political party aid was a non-issue, excepting for a few insiders. The term ‘political party assistance’ was

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mentioned in the academic literature for the first time by Thomas Carothers in 1999.1 Among the German foundations a serious debate on party aid began – al-most hesitantly – only after the beginning of this century. The Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which started an internal debate about the issue in the early 1990s, was the one exception.

Apart from the German foundations, most of the providers of political party as-sistance are very young institutions; 24 out of 31 European political foundations (aid providers) were less than 21 years old in 2005. Most of them were formed during the 1990s.2

Publications on political party assistance only started to come out as of 2004. Since then, very few publications have been available; closely related to this, there exists very little genuine political science research on political party assistance.

Hence, the conclusion to this first part of the discussion is – and this is the heart of the problem – we are dealing with a very young and completely under-resear-ched topic.

There are two dimensions to this unknown field:

(1) Political party promotion in practice: what is actually done in the field or sup-posed to be done.

(2) The recipients of party aid: the new types of parties which have emerged in many parts of the world during the third wave of democratisation, which started in 1974, and especially following the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

All these factors make the issue of international political party assistance very complicated. Before turning to the intricacies of the issue, I will briefly highlight various approaches in providing political party aid.

1 Carothers, Thomas (1999): Aiding Democracy Abroad. The Learning Curve, Washington, pp. 140ff.

2 Van Wersch, Jos/De Zeeuw, Jeroen (2005): Mapping European Democracy Assistance. Working Paper 36, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendal, The Hague.

II. Approaches in Providing Party Aid

There are various approaches to assisting political parties. The following differentia-tion has been suggested by Peter Burnell and seems to still be the most useful, with some minor modifications;3 some of the approaches are intended to have a more direct impact on political parties, whereas others have only an indirect effect.

1. ‘Partisan approach’: Assisting sister parties which are ideologically close; this is often mistakenly assumed to be the ‘German approach’, but the German foun-dations apply all the other approaches as well, although to different degrees, and not all of them are engaged in party aid.

2. Multi-party approach: Assistance is provided to all relevant political parties, usually to those which are in parliament.

3. Cross-party dialogue for the mediation/reconciliation of polarised political parties: The idea is to create a special protected space outside of the normal political process for building trust and cooperation or even for joint political-reform measures.

4. Civil society approach: Support is directed towards so-called ancillary organisa-tions that are socially and ideologically close to political parties such as trade unions, professional and religious organisations, think tanks, etc. In this case, the assistance to parties is indirect.

5. Transnational cooperation: Assistance is granted for the creation and operation of international networks of like-minded political parties within a particular region (for example, conservative parties in West Africa).

6. Institutional framework support: Assistance is provided to institutions that are relevant to and regulate the operation of political parties (electoral system, party law, electoral commission, and parliament).

7. Party system approach: Intended to ensure a stable and functional party system (this approach as a category of its own seems to be doubtful, because it is already covered by (6), that is, the provision of support for the institutional framework, which bears on the party system).

[NOTE: many of my suggested changes in this list are to make the items parallel so that the list sounds better when you read it aloud, or when someone else reads it on paper]

3 Burnell, Peter (2004): Building Better Democracies. Westminster Foundation, London.

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III. Problems with political party aid

1. Conceptual and practical critique

Although proper political party aid has a short history, there already exists a pro-found critique of what political party assistance is based upon conceptually and what has been done so far in practice; I paraphrase what Carothers has called the ‘standard lament’ on political party aid:4

1. The guiding model for the promotion of political parties is the Northern European party model.

2. Moreover, this is based on the myth of the mass party (which even in Europe existed only for a limited time and did not fit with all political parties).

3. The idea of party development is based on the Western European model of party development which, again, is a very special model that even does not apply to the USA.

4. All this ignores the emergence of new types of political parties – not only in Europe but also in many other parts of the world during the third wave of de-mocratisation.

5. Most promoters do not have clear-cut concepts and no strategies (see be-low).

6. One consequence of all these shortcomings is a schematic practical approach ba-sed on a one-size-fits-all notion – although there are, of course, exceptions.

Highlights of the ‘schematic approach’:

– Training workshops often too short, too superficial without contextualising the issues

– Problematic/incorrect topics decided by aid providers – not according to local problems/interests

– ‘Fly-in’ trainers/experts often lack local knowledge

– Selection of incorrect participants for training workshops; cronies of party leaders rewarded

– Questionable visits/tours in donor countries

7. This often goes together with a lack of contextual sensitivity to the particular conditions in each country.

4 Carothers, Thomas (2006): Confronting the Weakest Link. Aiding Political Parties in New De-mocracies, Washington, pp. 3ff.

Some of the critical issues raised above are probably more relevant to some of the younger party aid providers, perhaps some of the US organisations, than in the work of the more experienced German foundations with offices and personnel in the specific countries; however, even the foundations are familiar with some of these issues, especially the practical problems, while the question of the party paradigm and what sort of policy flows from it pertains to all.

Since I have emphasised the lack of strategy – while most party aid providers claim they have one – let me briefly highlight my understanding of ‘strategy’; it requires four, perhaps five, points:

(1) A clearly defined goal

(2) A reason why this goal has been chosen

(3) The identification of suitable instruments

(4) Clear instructions for target-orientated action

(5) And perhaps an idea of what sort of actions should be avoided

One point should be noted here: the statement about the lack of strategies is based on what is made public or made available to researchers. Many party aid providers claim that they have a strategy, but they are unwilling to make the strategy paper public (sometimes they provide a reason for this). In some cases I doubt whether these ‘strategies’ adequately incorporate the four points above.

Coming back to the problems of poorly designed party aid assistance, the possible results are as follows:

➤ danger of misallocation of funds

➤ danger of ineffectiveness

➤ failure of political party promotion

As indicated already, no serious and detailed evaluations or studies of political par-ty aid are available at this point. A very general critical assessment of party aid is provided by Thomas Carothers, who has been involved in a number of US party aid projects and has become familiar with the work of a number of other party aid pro-viders, including the German foundations. He reaches the following conclusions:

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1. Political party aid has not had transformative effects in Eastern Europe and Latin America – nor, one can easily add, in Africa or Asia.

2. It has had partly modest positive impacts on the organisational development of political parties in Eastern Europe.

To bolster his argument, Carothers points to the general phenomenon of the on-going crisis of Latin American political parties’ in recent years – despite the major efforts of various party aid providers, such as the German political foundations, who have been active since the 1970s and 1980s in many Latin American coun-tries. Similar observations have been made in Eastern Europe since 1989.

Of course, this judgment is quite sobering, if not devastating. However, it is based on a very strong criterion, the transformative effect. The problem is that there is no generally agreed-upon yardstick available to judge the success or failure of political party assistance.

Carothers explains what he means by a transformative effect: ‘A leader-centric, structurally debilitated, ideologically incoherent, weakly rooted party’ is transfor-med into a party with ‘genuine internal party democracy’, a ‘strong organisational structure’, an ideologically rooted platform and an ‘extensive social basis’.5

It is probably difficult to find this aim explicitly stated in any document that deals with political party aid. But it seems, in a reading of all the programmes and de-clarations, that this is, implicitly, to be the ultimate aim pursued by most party aid providers: the Northern and Western European mass-party model.

So what are the reasons for this poor balance of international party assistance or what allows, perhaps, such a fundamental critique?

1. Lack of clear-cut criteria for the evaluation of party aid

2. No proper concepts and strategies (including those which provide for evaluation criteria)

3. Hardly any proper evaluations and studies

4. And generally, the problem of identifying causes and effects – the very funda-mental problem in democracy promotion

5 Carothers op cit, 2006, p. 163.

5. A very special issue, which should be mentioned here as well, is the small amount of financial inputs in political party aid; political party aid accounts for about 10 % of the approximately 3 to 4 billion US$ (2005) spent annually on democracy promotion worldwide (which is a very rough estimation). Even this amount is much smaller than what private sources, even internationally, pour into political parties. The implication for international party assistance is that small investments usually have no major impact. This might be part of the explanation for the unimpressive results of party aid.

2. Lack of research & evaluation

There is another problem with political party aid: the fact that we have little de-tailed knowledge about political parties in young democracies – especially in non-European polities. And this problem is related first and foremost to political science research. More recent research on political parties has provided some general fin-dings on these parties, which are typically characterised by

– weak institutionalisation,

– weak societal linkages,

– a lack of major ideological differences,

– a high degree of personalism / weak organisations.

However, beyond these general features, our knowledge about these parties – how they operate, how they develop, what sort of effect they have on the party system and the development of democracy – is still very limited.

There are at least four problems that explain these shortcomings in political party research:

– The Western European bias of concepts

– Insufficient research outside Europe

– The dominant functionalist approach in party research

– The lack of historical research on the development of political party organisa-tions

However, there is also a lack of research and evaluation, which explains our poor knowledge about political party assistance:

– Political party aid is a new topic for political science research.

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– There is a fundamental lack of systematic evaluation of political party assistance projects/programmes.

– And there is a lack of communication between practitioners and political sci-entists – although this is slowly improving.

IV. Perspectives

In face of this highly critical assessment, the question remains: How can we over-come some of these problems in order to improve party assistance?

1. We need a conceptual discussion about the strategic aims or possibilities of political party assistance that addresses the following questions:

– What is possible and what not?

– Is the support of a party organisation in order to change it in a particular direction possible at all? Or to phrase it differently, shall we aim at a trans-formative effect as outlined by Carothers – or is that too much, because the overall development of political parties is beyond the reach (capacities and money) of external political party assistance providers? There are too many other structural societal factors that influence political party organisations which cannot be controlled by an outside agency – not to mention the fact that it is even very difficult for each party to determine its own fate as parties are dependent on the electorate in competition with other political parties. To some degree, political parties are a reflection of the society in which they operate.

– What would be the time horizons for such an aim? In order to change an organisation in the way envisaged above, I would expect we would be talking about 10 to 15 years, or possibly longer.

– What are other possible aims that can be achieved within a shorter time-frame? Perhaps, support in programmatic/ideological orientation? Or just support of the parliamentary representation of parties to provide a decent service to the electorate? Support of societal linkages (civil society organi-sations)?

2. In any case, and regardless of the specific aims chosen, there is a need for clearly designed and focused strategies that provide answers to the following questions: What should be done, and why should it be done? Who should do it, and when?

3. At the same time it is clear that no overall strategy for all countries is possible, but that each country need its own specific strategy .

4. This does not preclude an overall strategic decision on particular aims such as a multiparty-, sisterparty- or civilsociety orientated approach to providing party assistance. Country-specific strategies are necessary in either case.

5. To improve the quality and the effects of party assistance, more independent evaluations of political party aid projects and programmes are necessary, toge-ther with an improvement of evaluation instruments. This is a challenge best resolved by:

6. Better collaboration between practitioners and political party experts in political science.

7. And in political party research we need more historically orientated research about political party development – in addition to the extension of research to political parties outside Europe.

Discussion

Osama Ghazali Harp indicated, that communist and islamist parties also have a long tradition of party-cooperation.

Barbara Groeblinghoff missed in the presentation the point of human resource. To her opinion, there are not many experts in party assistance. She also reminds us not to forget that party-assistance is something for the long-run. To set up three or six year goals is often impossible. She disagrees with Erdmann that party assi-stance failed in Africa; especially not in South Africa and Tanzania.

Emil Kirjas called himself a product of the FNF party assistance. He is very thankful for the FFN work. He wonders why there is still so much reluctance around party assistance? He re-minds us from his experiences in Liberal International that is it difficult to compare parties in different countries. Parties reflect their society and their structure can be very different. Not all parties, which call themselves liberal, are able to handle the things we talk about.

Gero Erdman raises the question of what we understand by success in the field of party assistance. Electoral success is only one of several possible indicators. Chile, Spain and Portugal are widely considered as success-stories in democracy-building by the German political foundations. What were the conditions for their success? In all cases strong political parties were already existent on the ground. It seems that this was a decisive factor in all three cases.

Rainer Erkens remarks FNF uniqueness in this special field. FNF is the only political

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foundations who does party assistance and political education on party skills since many years. Many people still see party assistance as “dirty work”, in his view is a big problem which needs to be solved. For him, one hint for successful work is, if participants of a seminar come to thank him for the seminar/work FNF is doing.

For Atholl Trollip electoral results should be a indicator. He emphasized FNF stra-tegic planning and coalition building workshops as very important for his party. The worth of the foundation is less financial than ideational, which can influence a party far deeper. Money can be used for employing or paying the phone bill, in-stitutional learning and skill training is something more sustainable. In his view training politicians means having influence.

If a party becomes less leader centric, more ideology committed and is promoting liberal values through the media or by bringing forward liberal petitions, those are indicators for successful party assistance for Siegfried Herzog. He added, even if the FNF has not a lot of money, which usually means the influence on parties is limited; we have influence through strategic partnerships. Of course this means, real success can only be measured over a long run.

Jules Maaten says political parties want electoral success, that’s why they want to work with FNF to become more successful in elections. He supports that FNF tries to sell how a party does became a stable democratic party, because a stable par-ty systems provides a basis for a stable political system in a country. He suggests focusing more on the people we trained over decades, and asked: Where are they now? Do we have a database; do we connect with time from to time to time?

Gero Erdmann concludes that FNF does a lot in the field of party assistance and obviously with success. FNF had the clearest sense of what they wanted and at a very early stage. This makes a clear difference to all other political foundations. However he is still wondering how FNF can proof the success. That’s for him still the core question. Election results are influenced by so many factors that they can’t be accepted as a clear proof, only as indicators. He could not give an answer to the question, why it is so delicate to support political parties. Has it do to with our environment? Can we do something against it? Erdmann expresses his hope that political foundations would publish more/deeper information on their party assisting activities in the future.

3. Twenty years of political consulting by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation

Peter Schröder, strategy and communications consultant

(Extract)…………….If we approach the question of party consulting systematical-ly, then clearly the nature of the party being consulted is of great importance. It makes a difference whether we are working either directly with the party or parts of the party while engaged in consulting, or whether we are working through an intermediary, such as an organization associated with the party, a think tank or a different type of organization. I have already noted some of the problems by wor-king with associated organizations. But sometimes it cannot be avoided because direct cooperation between a German institution and a national party may violate laws in certain countries.

Cooperation with parties

If the party itself is the partner, the cooperation depends on the status of the par-ty or its type. Here, any deficits should be in the focus of attention. In countries where the Foundation is represented, liaisons with parties that do not have such deficits should be pursued and the dialog aspect of cooperation expanded. As an example, I would like to mention our cooperation with South Africa’s Democratic Alliance. When I encountered the party shortly after apartheid was abolished, it was completely convinced that South Africans, especially blacks and coloreds, would vote for the then DP out of sheer gratitude. It took a long time for me to convince several key persons that voters do not operate on the basis of gratitude.

When I asked participants at a consulting session where they saw their weaknesses, their answer was: “We are too pale, too male and too British.” This sentence I have never forgotten. But the party was not prepared for big campaigns at that time and had to completely redesign its strategy. Many consulting sessions with diffe-rent organizations and individuals provided help. Today the party has grown up. It is strong at the local government level and its leader, Helen Zille, holds the premi-ership of the Western Cape province. It has reached a good state of development in local government and leads the opposition at the national level in a difficult environment. It has learned things are done and does not really need any more po-litical consulting. Instead, its representatives and politicians could travel to other countries to advise parties there. I believe that the Foundation should develop new methods of cooperation in this area.

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When cooperating with other parties, the objectives are usually to create impro-vements in the area of liberalism, to strengthen the organization, and to develop and fortify liberal human capital. In order to achieve these overarching goals, de-ficiencies have to be addressed.

When starting to cooperate with a party, or when providing direction to a co-operation, it makes sense to carry out a joint review of the party’s situation after taking steps to build up trust. Common analysis techniques are suitable for this purpose.

Afterwards, decisions have to be developed regarding positioning, the political orientation, and possible medium- or short-term strategies within the context of strategic long-term planning. Any deficiencies noted in the areas of organization, structure, communication, resources, the program and political solutions then have to be translated into tactical planning. In the next step, the activity plans developed on this basis are implemented, taking into consideration recommenda-tions and experiences from best practice, campaigns, and management. From the Foundation’s perspective, after implementation has taken place, the tools for ope-rational and strategic control should be in place. The controlling process, in turn, will help to identify weaknesses or new challenges. On this basis, the cooperation cycle can be repeated as often as is necessary to achieve tangible results with re-spect to organized liberalism or the inclusion of liberal aspects in the politics of the project country.

This means, ideally cooperation with parties should not happen until a strategic analysis has been completed. I am currently in the process of launching such plan-ning processes in several countries in the context of long-term project planning. The processes feature milestones allowing the Foundation to run controlling pro-cedures at specific intervals instead of only after elections. We have started the process with a re-launch of the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) in Cambodia.

When we started advising the SRP in 2002, it stood at about 15-17 %. Step by step, we got the party to stabilize at over 25 percent, but this appeared to be the upper limit. On the one hand, this was because Sam Rainsy keeps a tight rein on the party and believes that he can do with it whatever he wants. But not everybody shares his view, and so there are regular defections, often supported by enticements from the Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) and Hun Sen, which always leads to a loss of MPs. On the other hand, the party has so far not managed to make inroads into the intellectual circles of the large cities. It is not believed to be competent. And so it concentrated on the marginalized members of society and took on a radical opposition role. But in South Asia, like in Africa and contrary to Europe and North Peter Schröder and Manfred Richter (from left to right)

America, opposition is a concept that is not generally accepted in society. After the most recent elections, which should have enabled greater gains to be made because several other opposition parties more or less disappeared, the point was reached where the SRP was prepared to consider a general relaunch. We then positioned the SRP so that it can claim certain positions for itself through parliamentary ini-tiatives. In this way, it took on the role of a constructive opposition that is gaining increasing competence, supported by experts and scientists. On August 18th of this year, the party submitted its first draft bill to parliament, an event that attracted great interest from citizens. Just imagine – since its first appearance in parliament, the SRP had never submitted a motion or proposed a law. This new positioning has now been laid out in a four-year project with specific milestones, prior to the strategic consulting planned for the next elections. Initial feedback from the party is positive, so we live in hope that things have been set on the right path.

Cooperation with party personalities

In some cases, there is no cooperation with a party as a whole, but only with in-dividuals who may hold a pronounced liberal position. Or there may be one or se-veral candidates who are particularly liberal – in spite of a different orientation prevailing in the party as a whole. Typically this is the case with parliamentarians

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or candidates for one-person wards in direct-election systems, or candidates for executive functions, such as mayor or governor. There are many real-life experiences that could be mentioned here, sometimes with better outcomes than we expect when working with a party. One such instance involved advising candidates for the St. Petersburg town council, who belonged to the Jabloko. The party itself was not able to cope with receiving political consulting, but individual candidates were. In this way, we managed to get several Jabloko councilors under the leadership of Mr. Amosov onto the St. Petersburg town council.

The list of examples also includes the very young Minister for Youth and the En-vironment in Senegal, Modou Fada. 13 young MPs, the Group of 13 in the PDS, grouped around him and staked their claim purely on the basis of the quality of their work in parliament. As we now know, it was an intervention by the Foun-dation that the parliamentary party leadership did not particularly like because it resulted in a self-confident group that had its own “liberal” ideas and which was not as easy to control as the PDS leadership would have liked.

There are many examples of this nature, some with good outcomes, and others that were condemned to failure from the start because the preselection was done unprofessionally and only on the basis of private interests. One example is Mayin Correa, the mayor of Panama City, who had been persuaded – amongst others by the Foundation – that she should run as a candidate for the presidency of Pana-ma. She was not really keen on the idea, but let herself be talked into taking part in several consulting sessions. In the end, she did not run. In a conversation with a small group of people, she once said that the only reason for possibly running for office would have been to get back at her potential opponent, Mireya Moscoso, who was indeed later elected and became president. And this was because Mireya had “stolen” her boyfriend when they were still at school.

When the Foundation decides to support and advise individual candidates, then the objective has to be to promote liberalism. It may be strategically advantageous for the Foundation to support such candidates or groups of candidates, in order to implement more liberal politics with a liberal group within a party, or at least to publicize liberal positions. The overarching strategic goal of such cooperation should be to promote liberal solutions and to increase influence on the party as a whole; at some stage, the party in its entirety should adopt a liberal orientation and become a suitable cooperation partner. This means that the Foundation has to undertake additional supporting measures to strengthen the group or the individual and to enable them to carry out their mission in accordance with the Foundation’s goals. To do this, the Foundation has to develop models on how to extend and le-verage beachheads successfully.

Parties with factions

Almost all parties include factions that pursue different political goals. This may happen in different forms. One path that leads to the formation of factions is when there are several different political orientations within parties. These orientations of-ten compete against one another at congresses and meetings, and may complement one another or be in conflict. Usually, factions have no organizational structure, but are instead found in loose networks, discussion groups and similar formats. Such factions are in most cases led by a political leader who act as spokesperson for the faction. The overall political orientation is usually decided at party conventions or congresses and is supported from the outside by the respective factions.

In the case of parties with primary elections, the factions act as an established form of internal democracy by publicly taking opposing positions. Leadership po-sitions are filled, or party list places allocated in accordance with the outcome of the internal elections. In extreme cases, one may find the classical party spectrum reflected within a single party. Such factions have their own structures and are able to fight intense battles against each other, with their own headquarters, press spokespeople, etc.

The former parties in Uruguay serve as a prominent example. The Blancos and the Colorados each contained socialist, liberal, conservative, Green, and other factions. The parties did compete against one another in terms of the special electoral law “Ley de Lemas”, and were able to decide elections in their favor, but the presiden-cy was then given to the strongest internal group within the victorious party. That is why there were sometimes internal battles that were more severe than the ex-ternal ones.

In such cases, the Foundation has to decide on a candidate with whom to cooperate. During one of my first presidential election campaigns, the Foundation supported Alberto Zumaran of the Blancos and not Luis Alberto Lacalle, who ended up be-coming president. This concentration on the losing candidate, who did contribute to Lacalle’s election victory, turned out to be a liability with the Blancos at a later stage to the degree that Lacalle had influence within the party.

Cooperating with party factions can take different forms and is sometimes ex-traordinarily challenging. This is particularly evident in cases where the party has factions which have their own organizational structures. In the case of Paraguay, this was not really a problem as long as the faction of Domingo Laino was so strong that the other factions played only peripheral roles. Today, it is different. There are between three and four factions of approximately equal strength, and they fight

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to draw blood. But even so, they do not want to hold a so-called ideology congress with a decision at the end – because this would most likely lead to a breakup of the party. That is something none of the faction leaders wants, because each of them intends to gain dominion over the party as a whole.

In such cases the Foundation often declines either to intervene in the preliminaries or help a specific orientation to win. This would be viewed as unwelcome meddling in the internal election campaign and would close the door on future cooperation with the entire party. The classical example is the liberal party in Honduras, the PLH. The party officially refers to itself as a “liberal” party and is also a member of Liberal International. But within the party, there are highly diverse factions, some of which are clearly social democrat or even socialist in their views. For practical purposes of cooperation, the Foundation refrains from politically judgment of in-dividual factions and accepts any winning faction as a potential partner for coo-peration in elections or in government. Whether this can continue requires more intense discussion. In Honduras, I acted as political consultant during several pre-sidential election campaigns. First, successfully, with Carlos Roberto Reina, then not quite as successfully with Pineda Ponce, and then again successfully with Mel Zelaya. We were not able to get access to Carlos Alberto Flores because we had spoken critically about his first election campaign against the candidate of the PNH Calleja; this information was then misused for a book publication by a staff member of the educational institute that cooperated with the Foundation.

The miraculous transformation of Mel Zelaya from a liberal president to a follower of Chávez’s socialist ideology under the influence of the earlier party president Patricia Rodas had been anticipated during the election campaign, but this infor-mation was suppressed in public communication. Both the dramatic events of the past few weeks and the media coverage of the Foundation show that the Founda-tion runs the risk of becoming the object of public criticism whenever it supports a political direction or candidate.

Let us now move from the large parties that can afford factions, to concentrate on the smaller parties.

Cooperation with Microparties

Some liberal parties are so small that even after intensive market analyses, there does not appear to be any real chance that they will ever play an important role promoting liberalism in their country. Sometimes they are breakaways from other groups with a liberal orientation. Sometimes the parties are grouped around one or several personalities who maintain the party for reasons of prestige. Sometimes the

positions of the party are based so firmly on pure orthodoxy that they give up any chance they might have in the market, and instead act as a sect. One such party is the Liberal Party in Sri Lanka. When participating in national elections, it had not gained more than 100 votes and also has no recognizable stronghold where it might be important on a regional level. The party is a member of LI and CALD.

When such microparties become members of serious international party groupings, they may cause real damage to the grouping’s reputation. If sufficient analyses have been carried out and it turns out there is no space for such a party in the political spectrum of a country, or when the party is found to be superfluous be-cause others are already occupying its intended space, then the Foundation should cooperate by helping to consolidate the market by merging the microparty with its remaining human capital into a different party. If that is not possible, the Founda-tion should concentrate on more important partners and not pursue any further attempts at cooperation.

Cooperation with parties in the building phase

Such parties are usually not sufficiently strategically focused. Let me use a party in India, one that is just beginning to develop, as an example. India is a difficult environment for liberal parties because only socialist parties may be founded, ac-cording to the constitution. This new party is the “Lok Satta Party”. It emerged from an NGO called Lok Satta and its leader is J.P. Narayan. He is the star and without him the party is unthinkable. That means that everything revolves around him.

But this is detrimental for a decent election result because the party is confronted with a “first past the post” type of election law and therefore needs many stars. From a European perspective, the Lok Satta Party is a program party that would stand a good chance in an electoral system based on proportional representation. But there is no proportional representation – the electoral system is instead based on majority voting. Political consulting therefore pursues goals that are contrary to the objectives of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. The consultant has to help the party produce stars who have a chance in their wards. He has to ensure that loyalty relates to people, not to programs. The programs provide the background music, but the candidate is the soloist.

The consultant has to teach the party that – at least during election campaigns – it may not continue its classical behavior as an NGO, inviting all and sundry and wanting to be “everybody’s darling”. Instead, it has to split society into supporters and opponents of its offering, which has to be aligned with the needs of the party’s

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target group. During such times, the party should not pursue the goal of educating society in liberalism.

Because, what use is a party that looks great from a liberal perspective, but which has no chance at all of participating in power to change the society in accordance with liberal tenets? In the course of my life as a political consultant, I have seen the “baddies” or “populists” win elections all too often because the “goodies” spent too much time worrying about the culture of politics in their country and forgot that they are fighting for power and influence. This meant that I did not always find my advice being welcomed in the Foundation, but this did not stop me from positioning parties in such a way that they at least have the chance of gaining influence. On the other hand, the Foundation should only offer parties to the con-sultants that have passed the test of liberalism.

On one other occasion, which occurred in Turkey in the 1990s, I had a remarkable experience, the outcome of which is not exactly one of the high points of my life as a consultant. Under the leadership of textile entrepreneur Cem Boyner, a party had emerged from a think tank that mobilized against all essential non-liberal ten-dencies in Turkey. It fought for tolerance for the Kurds, against the concentration of power in the military, against threats to secularism in Turkey, against human rights violations and against corruption, especially in the judiciary. All of the goals listed were promoted – at least verbally – by many political groupings, and so we discovered, during discussions on the role of the state and economic policy, that a number of socialists and Marxists were members of the party. This meant we had to cleanse the party early on and build it at the same time. These two activities are hard to combine. Nonetheless, the party reached values of up to an amazing 23 % in polls, which was highly significant in a country with a 10 % entrance require-ment for parliament. Then, the focus in the political debate shifted to the conflict between secular parties and a more fundamentalist Islamic party, and the YDH’s percentage disappeared into thin air in a matter of weeks. When the 10 percent level had been reached, support for the party dissolved within a week. The drama-tic final result was 0.3 % for a party that had seemed so promising from a liberal perspective. Even so, I would take the risk of helping this party rebuild anytime.

Cooperation with parties not represented in parliament

Parties not represented in parliament have a hard time even becoming visible. That is why they need a clear strategic orientation and consistent public relations. Eit-her their absence from parliament is the result of strategic mistakes in the past and can be fixed in the future, or the party is still in the process of being built and

has therefore not been able to participate in elections yet. I addressed this type of party earlier on. I like to call them “parties in statu nascendi”.

But if a party’s absence from parliament is the result of mistakes in the past, then the causes have to be intensively analyzed and the party’s willingness to learn from mistakes has to be tested. If it is not prepared to draw conclusions from the pre-vious result and act on them, then the Foundation should not cooperate with the party because it would be a bad investment. It cannot be a goal of the Foundation to take care of failed parties over extended periods of time.

In countries without any recognizable liberal groups in parliament or with a very high entrance requirement for parliamentary representation, keeping a liberal par-ty alive even if it is not represented can make sense if the group can be used as a medium to promote liberal politics. Here, one needs to wait for a suitable moment when the trend allows the party to enter parliament.

Cooperation with small parties in government

A small liberal party in government has to ensure that it remains visible in the government’s activities. For this purpose, the ministries or departments it heads need a clear strategy and have to perform exceptionally well in implementing liberal policies. The small liberal party has to ensure that it develops or maintains a reco-gnizable image and therefore has to differentiate itself from its larger partner.

Parties that do not themselves run an election campaign, but that are instead part of a pre-election coalition, and which therefore do not enter parliament directly, but only in combination with other parties of the pre-election coalition, face special problems. If the smaller parties in such a pre-election coalition do not manage to develop a clearly differentiated, independent profile and appear as a notable force within the election, their survey results will trend continuously downward. This means that the party will appear too weak by the end of the parliamentary period to join a new pre-election coalition, and it will be traded below its value. One such example is the Liberal Democratic Party in Macedonia. Together with the Social Democrats and others, it joined a pre-election coalition (Together for Macedonia). As a member of this coalition, it won 12 seats. Afterwards, concentrated completely on its work in government. This led to a considerable decline in its survey results and disappeared from peoples sight.

Another example is the fate of New Democracy (ND), later the Liberal Party of Serbia (LDS). It also ran as part of a group of parties in the pre-election coalition DOS. It never quite managed to create a profile as an independent party, although

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it made important contributions in government. At a later parliamentary election, without a pre-election coalition, the party was voted out of parliament with a very poor result. This form of pre-election coalitions is very common in Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe. The most recent examples are similar coalitions in the Ukraine.

In such cases, the Foundation should focus its advisory efforts on helping the party gain weight and an independent profile within the coalition. The problem is that the party may view increased differentiation as a violation of the coalition peace while it is in government, and members of government may object to it.

Cooperation with disreputable parties

In my consulting career, I was sometimes asked to work with parties that the Foundation or parts of the Foundation did not trust, or which were the subject of rumors about the party being involved in events that should preclude any co-operation. From the perspective of a fundamentalist liberal, such parties have an objectionable smell.

I experienced this when working with the Partido Frente Liberal in Brazil, which was said to be too close to the military and to have collaborated with the former dictatorship. On the other hand, it was a government party and an important factor for Brazil. The project manager at the time had a good relationship with the party, whereas the regional director would have preferred to terminate the relationship; he tried to influence an evaluation in this direction, but did not manage to do so.

Another case in point was the cooperation with New Democracy in Serbia. Here it was not so much the party itself that was the object of criticism, but rather its leader, Dusan Michajlovic, who was criticized for having previously worked with the government under Milosevic.

The cooperation with the Islamic Civic United Front (CUF) in Tanzania is also a subject of critical debate, albeit not quite as strongly. Occasionally somebody says that this party surely should not be a partner of the Foundation.

I believe it is important that in the case of party consultancy, the Foundation as a whole should back any party that receives political advice financed by the Foun-dation. The success of the party should be a publicized success for the Foundation and the strengthening of liberalism. It is not a good basis for successful consulting when the consultant feels slightly ashamed about being successful with a party.

This is why the selection of parties with which the Foundation cooperates should

be intensively discussed with all stakeholders from a politically strategic perspec-tive, including the FDP’s foreign policy experts – who wrinkle their noses from time to time – as well as Liberal International and other regional associations. In this context, benchmarks should also be developed for evaluating work within a region or a country.

Recommendations

Allow me to end by summarizing the key points and by mentioning some things I have noticed over the course of the years and which relate to strategic decisions by the Foundation. Such decisions influence party political consulting. And this is why I am here to report:

1. When relations between the Foundation and the respective leader of the party work effectively and the leader is not a controversial figure within the party, it is relatively easy to engage in consulting the party. But this does not necessarily mean that liberalism will be promoted. Often, having a stable party leadership is a symptom of restricted democracy within the party and may in some cases simply reflect ownership relationships with the party.

2. In times of great turmoil, as when the socialist systems collapsed in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe and when parties and party derivatives rapidly emerged, one cannot completely exclude a trial and error approach. But this means that an even greater effort has to be made to strategically analyze the partner as early as possible, in order to establish the facts. Such a strategic analysis should be done everywhere if it has not already been done.

3. If I think back to the beginnings of my work as a political consultant, I realize that there were one or more expatriate staff members of the Foundation in each country who were well-informed, including having an awareness of the little power games that can make or break the success of working with a party. They were able to build up a large number of contacts, to maintain them, and to generate trust. Today, the situation is completely different. The number of politically oriented expatriate staff members has dropped so low that there are too many countries with too many parties that, they need to be cared for. In many cases, the expatriate representative of the Foundation visits the country where a party is being consulted no more often than I do as an external consultant. Sometimes, it seems to me as if the Foundation’s expatriate representatives act like travelling salesmen dealing in liberalism: they turn up from time to time, hand out a couple of invitations to regional events as incentives, and ask if the party needs anything else. I consider this to be a negative development with regard to sustainable consulting work.

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4. In many countries where the Foundation does not have a permanent represen-tative, the party contact is the person responsible for international contacts. From my own observations, I know that the so-called “Internationals” rarely belong to the inner leadership circle of a party, but are instead seen as somewhat exotic. However, good party political consulting requires direct access to one or more power bases within the party. Only there can agreements be reached that ensure that the participants in consulting sessions are competent and influential. I have often taken part in events where staff from head office were deployed to fill the room, and at least create the quantitative impression that there was real interest in political consulting. There have also been cases where the party leadership did not even know that the party was being consulted (or where they acted as if they did not know). There has even been a case where the party leader hurriedly left the country whenever I arrived to consult the party. For him, this was the best option, so he avoided having to confront the outcome of the consulting and the resulting discussion with the secondary leadership level.

5. I should like to return to one problem that I have mentioned several times pre-viously. This is the issue of building beachheads. When consulting activities have been successful, and a liberal group was formed in parliament or even joined the government, then it is critical to follow up. All too often, the Foundation loses focus once the primary goal has been achieved, namely gaining a share of power. That is why limiting ourselves to party political consulting may not be enough. More comprehensive concepts need to be developed that include continuous advising of the parliamentary group on liberal solutions and initi-atives, continuous consulting with ministers or the entire government.

6. I have used this opportunity to speak very critically about the relationship bet-ween consultants and parties. And this is certainly appropriate because we have noticed that the relationship between parties and citizens is increasingly at risk everywhere, and that multi-party democracy is consequently under threat. Some years ago, at an international conference in Bogotá, I attempted to describe the relationship between citizens and politicians with the following words: “The citizen sees politicians and parties as being arrogant; they claim to be omnipo-tent, but when they attain power, they show themselves to be impotent.” But sometimes that is also how our consulting partners interact with us. “They know it all, they can do anything, but when push comes to shove, they fail.” But as an institution that deals with adult education and political consulting, the Fried-rich Naumann Foundation has to take care not be seen in the same way by its partners. It would be catastrophic if the partners thought: “They know it all, they can do anything, but when push comes to shove, we’re on our own.” This means

that the Foundation should take a critical look at what it can really deliver and how much experience it can really access in specific areas and make available to others. Critical quality management is desirable because an organization that does not have to earn its money by performing efficiently and effectively, and which instead uses taxpayers’ money to fund its services, is always at risk of overvaluing its offering or of not paying attention to quality.

7. While discussing the future design of political party consulting by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation today and tomorrow, we should not lose track of the fact that our challenges will change, that we will be confronted more and more quickly by new problems and that we need to find solutions for permanent political and crisis management. In an era when the eruption of a party-related crisis in Southeastern Asia or South America becomes known immediately in Germany and is an instant topic of discussion by interested parties, the Foun-dation, too, needs to perfect its crisis management in Germany.

Discussion

(a extended discussion of his recommendations took place in working group 1)

Barbara Groeblinghoff suggests that the IP to organises seminars and confe-rences on special party-topics like "local politics“, inviting project directors and party leaders.

Emil Kirjas complains, that recommendations of political consultants are often implemented only with delay. He mentions the lack of a clear liberal benchmark for LI-member parties: should we insist on this benchmark and break-up with few parties or not?

Peter Schröder agrees on Mr. Kirjas words. The Liberal International is currently accepting all parties, excepting only post-communists. A clear liberal benchmark

Peter Schröder

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for LI-membership is needed. He further describes a striking phenomena: when party-leaders receive political consulting in the framework of the ALN-network, they are very supportive. However, as soon as the consultant arrives in their re-spective home countries, they often refuse cooperation and/or to implementat recommendations. In his opinion, the Honduran‘ crisis demonstrates the need for a „party-crisis management“ within the FNF. As information about parties is re-aching Germany very fast nowadays, the FNF needs to be prepared in the case of a crisis like in Honduras this summer. He stresses, that the FNF has managed this crisis in a brilliant manner.

For Harald Klein, the Honduran crisis was a unique chance to build up profile. The FNF managed very well in informing not only the German public, but even leading German newspapers. This is an important role for a politcal foundation in times when the number of foreign correspondents is very reduced.

DA is today a very efficient and recognised party. We are ready, says Athol Trollip, to transfer our knowledge and experience to African neighbour countries.

4. Project scope: Analysis of four liberal parties from new EU memberstates in Eastern Europe

Ulrich Niemann, Regional Director Central, East and Southeast Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia

The Transition to liberal democracy in the new EU-member states nears completi-on. The predominant political model is pluralistic parliamentary democracy. There are a large number of ELDR/LI-member parties in the region. In most countries at least one party is member of Liberal International. However, despite the stable constitutional framework, party structures remain volatile, and a certain liberal “fatigue“ can be observed, with numerous former government parties either gone or on the verge of extinction. Performance of liberal parties varies widely despite similar historical transition.

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Central- and Eastern Europe has a strong focus on party cooperation and consulting to strengthen liberal parties and orga-nisations. In order to further improve the FNF’s party assistance programmes in the region a comparative analysis of four liberal parties from new EU member-states in Eastern Europe is under way. Ulrich Niemann outlines the project scope:

The selected parties are all members of ELDR/LI but have each a different deve-lopment history.

They also show differences in the national and historical context of their origins:

➤ The Reformist Party in Estonia – founded as a programmatic party; strongly influenced by the Western party model; well-defined programme with a narrow liberal profile; politically successful party; now in government.

➤ The Democratic Party in Poland – roots in the movement for democracy and freedom, which carried out the transition to democracy; has undergone party mergers and splits; former governing party; liberal profile; has survived recently by coalitions with leftist movements; facing its political sunset.

➤ NMSS in Bulgaria – founded abroad as a leader-oriented populist movement; developed into a liberal party; formerly in government; still not a classical programmatic party; diminishing political influence.

➤ LDS in Slovenia – arose from the communist youth movement; party in govern-ment; no clear-cut liberal profile; underwent a major split, has a stable 10 % of electorate.

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A qualitative and empirical analysis of each party has been carried out by political scientists in the respective countries. They were based on the following criteria:

Historical development: historical background; history of establishment; national specifics; party type; splits and mergers; key figures; party development stages to the present moment.

Organizational structure of the party: number and characteristics of members; organizational structure of the party (at national, regional and local levels); identi-fication of general strengths and weaknesses and of specific features (such as being strong in cities but weak in rural communities); internal democracy, management structure, and organization culture.

Programme development: analysis of the most significant party and election pro-grammes from a liberal viewpoint; development of programmes over time; reaso-ning behind the changes in the programmes.

Elections and the electorate: election results and interpretation; electoral struc-ture, possibilities for change; development potential of the party.

The analyses are of a high quality and are in line with the standards for internati-onal comparative analysis of political parties.

The comparative analysis is based on the following leading questions:

➤ Are the performance and development of the parties strongly related to their specific type of origin and their specific historical context?

➤ What are the similarities and what are the differences between the parties studied?

➤ Can useful general conclusions be drawn from these findings to better define the future conditions for the development of liberal parties in the region?

The Analysis Paper will be completed in 2010.

5. Panel Discussion: FNF party-assistance and democracy promotion around the globe

Participants:

– Arto Aas, Head of Prime Minister’s Office, Reform Party, Estonia

– Nereus Acosta, former Congressman for the Liberal Party, Secretary General CALD (Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats), Philippines

– Dr. Osama Ghazali Harb, President, Democratic Front Party, Egypt

– Eduardo Montealegre MP, President ”Movimiento Vamos con Eduardo“, Nicaragua

– Athol Trollip, Parliamentary Leader of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa

Arto Aas, Eduardo Montealegre, Nereus Acosta, Manfred Richter, Osama Ghazali Harb (from left to right)

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Question 1: What legal regulations exist in your country, defining the signi-ficance, functions and procedures as regards political parties. Where do you see major deficits?

Arto Aas: Estonias political system did quite well over the last 20 years. The coun-try re-achieved its independence in 1991. The past 18 years have taken them on a road full of twists and turns, from totalitarian society to a free Western world. Estonia is uncompromisingly a free parliamentary republic with a transparent and democratic election system. Estonia follows the highest standards of human rights and rule of law. Estonia is a member of the European Union and NATO since 2004. We share the same framework of international law and western values. According to the latest international studies, Estonia is one of the most liberal countries in the world.

Nereus Acosta: parties in the Philippines have a leader centric-structure. Parties have enormous campaign expenses, which are covered by their MPs, their candi-dates, and private sponsors, most of whom are from China. In his view, the Philip-pines have a problem regarding transparency: the party system is corrupt. The parties benefit from the rule that no legal reports of financial supports during elections are needed. At present no general party law exists, but they have a party-list system for better representation for minorities, women, and under-represented groups.

Osama Ghazali Harb: Egypt has a difficult political system, with a restricted party system. There are parties, but it is very complicated to establish a party. His party, the DFP, had luck. The parties especially have problems gaining or growing mem-bership. Not just anyone who wants to become a member, will get membership. Some people get even threatened by national security. National security also tries to limit the membership of parties. It is nearly impossible, except for governing parties, to hold meetings outside party headquarters: it is forbidden, says Harb. Financing is another problem in Egypt. He told us about a business man who wan-ted to fund his party, but hesitated to give money, because of the expected threats from the state against him. Freedom of speech is limited: there is no freedom of the press, no free civic society.

According to Eduardo Montealegre in Nicaragua, the construction of democratic institutions and the current political party-system began in 1991, when the Nica-raguan people, through elections, managed to overcome the totalitarian regime of the Frente Sandinista (in power since 1979). Nicaragua does not have a law on political parties. The legal regulations on creation, function and dissolution of po-litical parties are contained in the Electoral Law. Only 15 articles are dedicated to political parties (chapter "On political parties”, articles 61 to 76). In consequence,

the Supreme Electoral Council, having state authority has wide, almost unlimited jurisdiction.

During the 1990s, the Electoral Law facilitated the creation of political parties, alliances of parties and independent candidatures. As result, a multiparty system (formally) with two mayor parties and many small parties of little importance was created. The current Electoral Law, approved in 2000 by an agreement of the Par-tido Frente Sandinista and the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC), changed this panorama, supporting a two-party-system aiming for shared control of the electoral system by the two mayor parties.

The prevailing Electoral Law:

• Makesthecreationofpoliticalpartiesdifficult,definescomplicatedproceduresand allows the Supreme Electoral Council unfettered freedom to decide if a party is recognized or not.

• Eliminatesthepossibilityofparticipatinginelectoralprocessesthroughinde-pendent candidatures supported by citizens.

• Establishesthedissolutionofapoliticalparty,whenitdoesnotparticipateina national or local electoral process, or obtains less then 4 % of the votes cast in an election.

• AllowstheSupremeElectoralCouncil,controlledbythePartidoFrenteSandi-nista and the PLC, wide powers to supervise the internal operation of political parties, imposing sanctions which include the dissolution of the party and not recognizing the elected party authorities.

The Supreme Electoral Council uses its powers in an arbitrary way, acting in the interest of the two parties which control the Council. For example:

• Dissolvingpoliticalpartiesduringanelectoralprocess,

• Arbitraryremovalofparty-authorities,

• Restitutionoflegalentitytoalreadydissolvedparties,duringanelectoralpro-cess.

These illegal actions of the Supreme Electoral Council reached a peak during the municipal elections of November 2008, during which a massive fraud was de-tected. In more than 40 municipalities, including Managua, authorities overrode the citizen vote.

To summarize, the mayor deficit of the Nicaraguan legal regulation regarding po-

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litical parties is the fact that the Supreme Electoral Council is an institution under the influence of two major parties and regulated competences. In consequence, there is no legal certainty in the creation and functioning of political parties.

After the electoral fraud of November 2008, the central debate is not so much based on the frailties of the party-system or the electoral system, but on what has to be done in order to avoid the collapse of representative democracy and the imposition of a new dictatorship.

Atholl Trollip: South Africa does not have a formal set of regulations governing po-litical parties such as that of Germany’s "Law on Political Parties” (Parteiengesetz). Apart from the Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution stating that "Every citizen is free to make political choices“ (which include the right to create political parties, to take part in party activities, to recruit members, and to campaign for a political party or cause), political parties and their formations are fairly unregulated. However, the Electoral Act 26 of 1998 requires all political parties to register with the Independent Electoral Commission IEC) in order to participate in public elections Act 1998, 26). Political parties have to adhere to some regulations according to the IEC’s Regulations for the Registration of Political Parties 2004 in order to register successfully, including the requirement that a political party must submit a name (not longer than 60 letters in length), an abbreviation (not longer than 8 letters in length), a distinguishing emblem, and its constitution.

One of the problems in South Africa is the lack of regulations governing party fun-ding. Currently there is no law regulating private funding to political parties, and this is often abused by stakeholders in the private sector, foreign governments or even criminals who provide funding in exchange for having influence on public offi-cials. The Democratic Alliance has on a number of occasions raised its concern that it appears that the ANC government’s election campaigns have been bankrolled by autocratic, repressive regimes in the past, including the ruling Chinese Communist party and the ruling parties in Libya, Syria, Angola and Equitorial Guinea.

Some of the most notable examples include:

– Receiving 50 million US dollars from the late General Sani Abacha of Nigeria in 1995.

– Receiving 10 million US dollars from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in 1999.

– Receiving 10 million US dollars from the United Arab Emirates in the lead up to he 1999 elections.

– Receiving a total of 60 million US dollars from the Indonesian government of General Mohammed Suharto in 1999.

There is every reason to believe that the donations which the ANC receives from these governments forms part of its strategic relationships with ruling parties in other countries, to fund each other‘s elections campaigns in return for post-election favours. This could result in South Africa supporting autocratic governments in in-ternational forums, even where clash with the democratic values enshrined in our Constitution, and when they represent oppressive regimes guilty of gross human rights abuses. The saga of our government‘s refusal to allow the Dalai Lama into South Africa for the 2010 World Peace conference appears to be the most recent example of how foreign donors use their leverage to further their interests – even when this means undermining the sovereignty of the state concerned. It must not be forgotten that President Motlanthe, in his previous capacity as Secretary-Ge-neral of the ANC, traveled to Iraq with other senior ANC officials to meet with the government of Saddam Hussein, and, furthermore, according to a UN report on the Oil-for-Food scandal, was prepared to 'sell‘ South Africa‘s diplomatic support for Iraq in exchange for access to lucrative oil contracts.

In light of these controversies the DA has called on the ANC to make full disclosure of its funding from foreign governments, in order to dispel the irresistible conclu-sion that it is selling the country’s foreign policy to the highest bidder. Regulati-ons governing private funding could assist the current situation. However, the DA also recognises that this could become a double edged sword, as private local and national funders are often reluctant to disclose their funding programme as they fear that they might be discriminated against by the ANC Government if it is made public that they have been funding opposition parties.

Question 2: What structural pattern shows the party-system in your country ?

According to Arto Aas, Estonia has a pluralistic party system. A unicameral par-liament is elected every four years. Eleven political parties participated in the last election in 2007; six of them reached the election threshold and entered the Ri-igikogu. Electoral unions and independent candidates participate mainly in local authorities elections. In principle, Estonian political parties operate as NGOs. Ho-wever, we have additional party law that regulates the activities of political parties and places extra demands and greater control over the parties. The formation of a political party is very simple – 1000 registered founding members are needed to form a new political movement. Recent years have been quite active in consolida-tion through mergers of political parties.

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Estonia has six major political parties that are represented in the parliament. They cover the whole political spectrum of parties, and they have a solid constituency. Political parties represented in the parliament are financed from the state budget according to the number of mandates in the parliament. In addition, party members and other private individuals can make donations. All the sponsors and donations are public and observed online. Donations from companies and foreign organiza-tions are prohibited. Still, party funding is always a hot topic both in Estonia and in other European countries.

Nereus Acosta: The Philippines introduced the Party-List System during the elections in 1998. Under this system, citizens vote for parties rather than for candidates, and parties are given electoral seats based on the proportion of votes they get. Citizens are given a bigger voice, as more parties may be voted into office. And because now it is parties that are elected rather than individuals, parties have bigger space to concentrate on platforms and programs rather than on individual candidates, so Acosta. The election is divided into three steps: the campaign, the election, and the post-election, and so it takes weeks to get a election result.

Osama Ghazali Harb: In Egypt, one can get election result even two or three days before the election. The party system is very difficult. Egypt has a multi-party sy-stem, one ruling national party, five little parties and 20 quite unknown parties. The division in the opposition is large.

The election process is always under judicial supervision.

As Eduardo Montealegre outlined, the political party system in Nicaragua is not yet well developed due to the fact, that Nicaragua is a new democracy. Seen politically, citizens define themselves by being committed ore not to democratic principles.

In consequence:

• Ahighpercentageofthepopulationdoesnotbelongtoapartyoridentifyitselfin public with a party.

• Formalmembershipofpartiesispoor,andparticipationofthememberswithinthe party is even poorer.

• Partyactivitiesareprincipallyorientedtoelectoralprocesses.

• Partiesarenotbasedonideologicalplatformsbutonpersonalleadership.

Considering these conditions, one could set the following political tendencies:

• ThePartidoFrenteSandinista,underDanielOrtegaandactuallyinthegovern-ment, with a populist and authoritarian tendency, and with a discourse aligned to the „Socialism of the 21st century” brought on by Hugo Chávez.

• Adiversenumberofpoliticalpartiesandmovementscommittedtothevaluesof a representative democracy, together with citizen rights and the free mar-ket economy, which together form electoral alliances, always led by a liberal party.

From 1995 to 2006, the principal parties were the Frente Sandinista (in the role of the opposition from 1991 to 2006) and the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC).

In 1999, Daniel Ortega established a political agreement (mostly known as „El Pacto”) with Arnoldo Aleman, who at that time was President of Nicaragua and leader of the PLC; an agreement which resulted in a constitutional reform. The fundamental objective of the "Pacto”, was to guarantee continuity and perpetu-ation of both politicians as leaders of their parties and obtain shared control of the state institutions.

Thus, they distributed the control of the state powers among the major parties and the required percentage to win an election was reduced to 35 % of votes casted, in order to make it match with the percentage maintained by the Frente Sandinista since 1991.

As another consequence of the "Pacto”, many members and voters of the PLC left the party and in 2005 created a citizen movement denominated "Movimiento Va-mos con Eduardo” (MVE).

For the general elections in 2006, the Movimiento Vamos con Eduardo, constructed out of an alliance of diverse democratic parties and called "Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense”, won second place in the voting. Daniel Ortega won the Presidency of the Republic with only 38 % of the casted votes.

Due to the fact that in 2007 the Supreme Electoral Council illegally removed Edu-ardo Montealegre of the presidency of the Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense, in the municipal elections of 2008, the MVE built an alliance with the PLC, which won the elections in the majority of the municipalities, including Managua. But the Supreme Electoral Council, through a massive fraud, gave the main part of the municipalities to the Partido Frente Sandinista.

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At present the MVE has formally integrated into the Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI), which is the oldest liberal party of Nicaragua. From the PLI we continue the dialogue with other liberal parties, in order to achieve the unity of liberals, this as a first step to keep together all the democratic parties with regard to the general elections in 2011.

This process continues despite a profound crisis of the democratic system of Nica-ragua, due to the total loss of credibility of the electoral authorities.

Consequently, besides achieving unity for the coming general elections, the main claim of Nicaraguan democrats is that elections have to be held guaranteeing transparency and respecting public will, which implies at least the nomination of suitable electoral authorities and the presence of national and foreign electoral observers.

Athol Throllip outlined that South Africa has a dominant party system where the African National Congress (ANC) has won the majority of votes since 1994, which has culminated in the ANC gaining a two thirds majority (69.68 %) in the 2004 elections – meaning that it could unilaterally change the Constitution if it so wis-hed. The results of the April 2009 national election clearly shows how the ANC dominates South Africa’s political party system:

– African National Party (ANC) 65.90 %

– Democratic Alliance (DA) 16.66 %,

– Congress of the People (COPE) 7.42 %

– Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) 4.55 %

(despite the fact that the ANC has a dismal track record of service delivery, and is unable to control crime and corruption, and so relies on blind, loyal support from ethnic, racial, and cultural communities)

However, there were a number of significant occurences during the 2009 provincial and national elections that show how the ANC’s dominance has decreased:

1) It lost its two-thirds majority;

2) A new party COPE came into being just before the election as a result of a number of ANC politicians leaving the party and it won 7.42 % of the votes;

3) The DA grew by one million votes or 4.29 percentage points in the national elections (the only party that took part in the 2004 elections to grow)

4) The DA won the Western Cape province thereby taking away one of the nine provinces from the ANC government.

These results reveal that ANC support has diminished slightly, however oppositi-on parties face a huge challenge, as voter support is not directly related to voter satisfaction and contentment with the ANC government and its delivery of ba-sic services. The majority of South Africans vote according to racial identity and the ANC is seen to be the only party to represent the black majority of voters in the country. Linked to this, is the fact that when voting for the ANC voters also vote inadvertently for the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (COSATU), as these three parties form a tripar-tite alliance whose members hold senior positions in the ANC and influence the party’s policies and therefore the policies of government. (This is despite the fact that neither the SACP or COSATU have ever contested any elections under their independent banners).

As long as South Africans vote according to race and not according to how the ANC government has performed and kept its promises to its voters, South Africa will continue to be a defacto oneparty state dominated by the ANC. The greatest challenge for the DA is to become a party that identifies with all voters and is identified, particulary by the black majority in South Africa, as a viable alternative to the ANC.

Question 3: Please elaborate on the internal organisation of your party, i.e. internal democracy, internal policy making, internal decision-making. Where do you see major problems or challenges?

Arto Aas: the Estonian Reform Party has built a strong party organization with internal democracy and subordinate sovereignity holding an important role. The party consists of 15 country organizations as well as a large youth organization and associations for senior members and women. All sub-organizations have their own governing board and representatives on the governing bodies of the Reform Party.

Estonia is a pioneering e-country with several years of practice in electronic parlia-mentary and local electoral voting, and the voters are showing a growing interest in it. The Reform Party has also established an e-voting system for electing the party board and council. Inner-party e-voting is used to form the final list of the candidates for the parliamentary elections. The internal democracy is very well developed within the Reform Party. The only true exception is election campaign management.

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Nereus Acosta: the Philippines´ Liberal Party is the oldest party, but not very big. In addition, the party had a very big split, so Acosta. Last year, the Supreme Court decided they were the only liberal party in the country. The Liberal Party is the only party which also works as a think thank; it is drafting positions and policy related papers. A huge problem of the party is fundamental weakness in its structure. It has to struggle with weak grass roots and the gap between traditional and mo-dernizing elements in the party.

Osama Ghazali Harb: The aim of DFP party leaders should be to educate democratic behaviour and set up democratic regulations in the party, so Harb.

Eduardo Montealegre: In all Nicaraguan political parties:

• partystructuresareweak,

• theprogrammaticplatformsarelittleknownorinexistent,

• theprocessesofdecisionmakingarelittleparticipative,

• thereisadeeplyrootedtraditionof„caudillismo”(thepartyisledbyoneaut-horitarian leader),

• theinternalregulationsarepooranddeficient.

As a consequence political parties traditionally have been seen as formal vehicles that participate in electoral processes with the institutional development of party structures not being a priority.

Anyhow, there is a growing awareness of the need for modernizing political parties and on promoting effective participation of citizens in the life of political parties, after having recognized that the traditional form of doing politics suits the rise of dictatorial ambitions.

Our movement was born as a rebel force within the PLC, as a result of the lack of internal democracy and treason of the liberal values by the party’s own board.

Although our structure isn’t different from other parties in Nicaragua (Board, Ge-neral Assembly, local organization, youth), we make a difference as we offer a participation in the decision making on the local level, especially while creating alliances and defining candidates.

As you know, it isn’t easy work, but it has been an interesting experience for Ni-caraguan politics, where the local structures and the youth are traditionally only executors of the decisions taken by the party leaders.

For example:

• Inthe2006generalelections,ourfirstelectionexperience,wehadprimarieswithin our party, the Liberal Alliance to elect the candidates. As a result, the majority were "new faces”, mainly younger people, who were supported by their communities.

• Inthelocalelectionsin2008thelocalassembliesweregiventotalfreedomtochoose their candidates within our movement.

• Todaywearesettingthebaseforarenovationofourlocalpartyauthoritiesthrough internal elections.

The major problems in the internal organization:

• TheobstaclesgivenbytheSupremeElectoralCouncilmaketheparty‘sconso-lidation a difficult task.

• Thelackoftechnicalandfinancialresourcestodevelopinternalelectionsatthe local level.

Atholl Trollip: Firstly, there is – and always has been – a tension between the constitutionally created decision-making structures of the party, and the profes-sional staff. Both make decisions, and sometimes these decisions conflict with one another, particularly in an era characterized by increasing professionalization of politics.

The constitution of the Democratic Alliance is federal and democratic, and devol-ves decision-making to the lowest level at which it can effectively be exercised. Thus the members of the DA, organized into branches, elect delegates to regional councils, provincial councils, and to the Federal Congress, which according to the Federal Constitution, is the "supreme policy-making body”. The problem is that Fe-deral Congress "generally” meets every two years for a day and a half; provincial councils might meet quarterly for half a day, and regional councils slightly more regularly.

The important decisions in the DA are taken by the Provincial Executives, with the Federal Executive generally acting on the advice of the professional staff. These executives meet much more regularly (in the case of the Provincial Executives ge-nerally monthly or more regularly, and the Federal Executive once every six weeks, with telephone conferences of these bodies scheduled as and when the needs arises). This is because the executives are much smaller bodies, composed by and large by individuals who are more experienced and who have the time to debate

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issues and resolve problems. But politics is increasingly complex. Interaction with the IEC, advertising agencies, lawyers, computer consultants, and direct-marke-ting specialists require a level of expertise that very few elected politicians have. Accordingly, this task is generally performed by staff members, who report to the executives. This necessarily implies that decisions are made by individuals and smaller bodies, who do not always have express mandates from the democratical-ly elected decision-making bodies. From time to time conflict arises between the "professional” and the "democratic” decision making structures. In order to defuse this, the DA draws a distinction between "political” and "operational” decisions. A "political” decision would concern strategy, while an "operational” decision would concern the implementation of such decisions. To reinforce this, all professional staff sign an undertaking that they will not involve themselves in internal politics and the Federal Executive recently resolved that no staff member could be a pu-blic representative.

Another tension relates to the policy-making process. Again the Federal Constitution makes this the responsibility of the Federal Congress or the Federal Council when Congress is not in session. In cases of "urgency” the Leader may "interpret” policy within the framework of our policies and principles. At no stage are the caucuses of the party (the people who actually legislate) allowed to make policy, and I suspect any attempt to give them this power would be resisted by the party.

Question 4: How would you describe the contribution of your party to the democratization process in your country ?

Arto Aas: During its 15 years of existence the Estonia Reform Party has grown and developed a great deal. The circumstances have been rather complex and dynamic, but we have been successful. Now we are ready to share our model of success with other liberals around the world. We are not rich in monetary terms, but we are certainly wealthy in knowledge and experience. We are willing and ready to contribute and spread liberal ideas worldwide. This can only be successfully im-plemented in close partnership with FNF.

Eduardo Montealegre: During the last 100 years, democratic changes and socio-economic progress in Nicaragua were implemented by liberal governments. But corruption and bad work on the part of the liberals provoked the rise of dictators who provoked poverty and armed conflicts. Our movement was born in 2005, as it was necessary to renew liberalism. Since then it achieved a democratization of Nicaraguan politics by breaking the monopoly held by the Frente Sandinista and the PLC. It promotes political action in defense of democratic values and broad

participation in decision making. Before the movement arose, the Frente Sandinista and the PLC ruled and occupied political power. Citizens, who repudiated corruption and the use of public institutions to defend personal interests, had no chance to defend themselves. This anti-democratic system was broken as half of the voters were in favor of our party in the 2006 elections.

Since Daniel Ortega gained power, democratic institutions were systematically attacked and the opposition was oppressed even through courts. Despite those attacks our movement was able to resist and to defend democracy. We were able to create a democratic alliance for local elections in 2008, and the majority voted for our candidates.

Today, we continue being the most credible option for the defense of democra-tic values. As we are aware of our responsibility, we are working to achieve unity among the democrats of Nicaragua in order to resist the hostile actions by the ruling government.

Athol Throllip: An important point to make here, is that South Africa’s Constitution is probably one of the most advanced in the world when it comes to respecting and

promoting fundamental human rights and freedoms, as well as championing democracy, and Parliament plays a key role in ensuring that every provision of the Constitution is protected at all the times, though this aspect requires constant vigilance and determined protection, as the ANC is all to often wants to marginalise parliament.

The DA, as the official opposi-tion in Parliament, plays a vital role in this regard, as it exer-cises oversight over the ANC Government and ensures it is held accountable for its actions and decisions at all times. By doing so, the DA ensures that the ruling party does not abu-se its majority power in Parlia-Osama Ghazali Harb and Athol Trollip (from left to right)

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ment and does not put its own party political interests before the rights of South Africans, or before the authority and independence of the Constitution and all its important provisions.

One only has to look at Zimbabwe to see what happens if this oversight role is not exercised properly, and a political party is allowed to increase it majority power through unscrupulous and corrupt practices. Building a stronger and more viable DA is the only thing that stands between a successful South Africa and another failed African state.

Secondly, South Africa is facing the ultimate litmus test for any young democracy, which is when one political party has to hand over it’s governing power to another party. The DA successfully won control of the Western Cape in the 2009 elections, which was previously run by the ANC government. The DA has grown in every national election since 1994, and not only does it plan to win a large number of municipalities in the upcoming 2011 local government elections, but it also plans to become part of national government in 2014. By doing this, the DA will ensu-re that South Africa does not fall into, the same trap that so many other African countries have fallen into where one party rules uncontested for many years, and so democracy in these countries is eroded.

Also the DA currently leads various intiatives to combat the co-option of the judicia-ry, where the ANC led government is hell-bent on compromising the independence of this important foundation of our constitutional democracy. Recent machinations aimed at ensuring an ANC-aligned majority on the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), is but one of the ways that the ANC seeks to ensure that there is a compliant judiciary, as the JSC appoints all judges and Constitutional Court judges. This has had a profound impact on the corruption case against President Zuma and other such cases involving senior ANC aligned political and public sector figures.

Question 5: How would you assess the FNF’s contribution to the deve-lopment of your party? What are the most significant achie-vements? Do you have any recommendations for our future co-operation? Do you see possibilities to increase your party’s contribution to consultancy measures?

Arto Aas: The FNF has played an outstanding role in the organizational develop-ment of the Estonian Reform Party, as well as the whole democratic system of Es-tonian politics. The FNF has been the main source of know-how and experience, the main importer of Western values the kind of help was particularly necessary in

the 1990s. Thanks to the German liberals, the Estonian Reform Party has achieved the most authoritative and successful position in Estonian politics.

The main areas where FNF’s help is highly needed and appreciated:

1) managing election campaigns (excellent cooperation with Peter Schröder)

2) educating young party members – the new generation of liberals

3) developing and implementing liberal politics – programs for the members of Parliament

4) networking for liberal leaders

The role of FNF is very important for the Estonian liberals. FNF has always been our main gateway to the international liberal family.

Nereus Acosta: The FNF has been partner of the Liberal Party Philippines for the last 15 years. The FNF gave them a liberal face and helped them to function like a party. The FNF found liberal allies and connected them, so they have a good party-network. We find workshops on communication, human rights, economic freedom, constitutional rights to be very helpful.

Osama Ghazali Harb: He feels very lucky with the assistance of the FNF. This is, for the Democratic Front Party, very important. But still more education and learning on liberal values and concepts are needed in Egypt.

Eduardo Montealegre: In order to achieve renovation and unity in Nicaraguan liberalism is fundamental for:

• theformation/trainingoflocalleaders;

• thepromotionofliberalideology;

• internaldemocracyatallpartylevels.

In these 3 areas the support by the Naumann Foundation has been very important, especially during the last ten years through:

• Educationalprogramsonliberalideologyandleadershipforyoungerpeopleandlocal leaders.

• ThepromotionoftheexchangeofexperiencebetweenliberalsfromNicaraguaand the world, through scholarships and visits to Nicaragua.

• Educationalprogramsindemocracyforjournalists.

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• Thepromotionofinternaldemocracywithinliberalismthroughfinancialandtechnical support.

The support is so important that it turns the Naumann Foundation into the mayor partner in the field of education for the liberals of Nicaragua.

An evidence for the successful work of the FNF in Nicaragua, is the fact that the majority of the young people now in functions within the movement, the national parliament, or local administrations began their political careers with a scholar-ship from the FNF.

Also, due to the support by the FNF, they established relations, cooperation and exchanges of experience between the liberals of Nicaragua and other liberal par-ties within the Liberal Network of Latin America (RELIAL).

These relations are very worthy and useful, as in many Latin American countries, including Nicaragua, there are anti-liberal, populist and authoritarian governments in power.

Considering the success of the cooperation and the actual problems of Nicaragua’s democracy, we would like to go on with the support by the FNF, especially aiming at:

• Technicalassistancefordialoguebetweendemocraticforcesinordertodefendthe democratic system.

• Leadershiptrainingforlocalleadersandmembersoflocalgovernments,workingunder the harsh conditions set by the ruling national government.

• Intensifythetrainingforyoungerpartymembersandthepromotionofpoliticalparticipation.

• Programsaimingateducationindemocracyandliberalideologyagainstthestrong propaganda for the „Socialism of the 21st century”.

As national donors suffer repression by the socialist government, we have to recal-culate our financial possibilities for activities and training. President Daniel Ortega uses government money and money given by Hugo Chávez for his own party, in order to stay in power even longer than until 2012. Due to this fact, it depends on the future work of the Liberals in Nicaragua, as to whether democratic system can be hold up or a dictatorship is imposed. Under these circumstances the in-ternational cooperation will be fundamental in realizing such tasks as training, promotion of democracy and party organization before the general elections in November 2011.

Athol Throllip: FNF has links all the way back to the 1970’s with the predecessors of the Democratic Alliance, namely the Progressive Federal Party (PFP) and the De-mocratic Party (DP). During the first post-apartheid election in 1994, the DP only won 1.7 % of the vote at a national level, and only 10 seats in Parliament, but the FNF stood squarely behind the party and has since then had a close, supportive relationship with the DP and later the DA (which was formed in 2000 with the merger agreement between the DP, Federal Alliance and the New National party) at all three spheres – local, provincial, and national.

The FNF has played an extremely large role at the local level of the DA by assisting the party with the formation of the Association of Liberal Democratic Councillors (ALDC, which later became the Association of Democratic Alliance Councillors -ADAC). ADAC was formed in 1995 with a membership of around 100 councillors – this membership has grown to well over 1000. ADAC is one of the FNF’s most active political partners in South Africa and is centred on capacity building for DA councillors, sharing ideas and information between councillors, communicating between councillors and other spheres of the DA, local government policy deve-lopment, focused research on local government topics, advocacy support on local government issues, and councillor concerns. The FNF has therefore effectively as-sisted the DA in creating a strong, organised network between DA councillors who are spread thoroughout the country. (This capacitation programme is bearing fruit, as many councillors eventually become MPL’s and MP’s – their experience and ex-pertise contribute to the DA performing well above its political weight)

The FNF foundation plays a similar role in the DA at a provincial level. It works closely with the DA’s MPL’s (members of the provincial legislature) through the DA MPL’s network as well with women and youth in the party through the DA women’s network (DAWN) and the DA Youth (DAY). At a national level, the FNF works ex-tremely close with the national parliamentary caucus of the DA which has 77 Members of Parliament (MP’s) as well as with the DA’s National Head Office. The FNF assists the DA in all three spheres of government by providing political edu-cation as well as political consultancy on an ongoing basis. In any one given year, there are usually over 100 joint events between the FNF and the DA in these three spheres. A great example of one of these events, was the DA parliamentary caucus retreat, in which the FNF contributed to financially as well as playing a facilitation role and providing administrative back-up. This retreat was centred around helping the newly elected parliamentary caucus come up with its vision and plan of action for the next five years. This is extremely important, especially seeing that we have become a party of government at both local and provincial levels.

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Most of the consultancy asistance that is provided to the DA is conducted by the FNF staff and not by outsiders flown in by the organisation. Furthermore the FNF has, over the years, developed and trained political strategists and planners from amongst the DA, for example, a number of the party’s councillors, who can now design political strategies for their own caucuses. In this way, the FNF has done sterling work in empowering the DA and its public representatives.

The FNF have been instrumental in a number of important achievements the DA has enjoyed over the last couple of years.

Firstly, the FNF has helped the DA successfully deal with the large number of ad-justments that have had to be made as the party and its various caucuses have grown over recent years. These included organising a large number of retreats, where these caucuses have been able to come up with new strategies and plans of action for the coming years. This has been enormously helpful during the formation of various alliances and coalitions that have brought us to government.

The creation of ADAC is most probably one of the greatest achievements of the FNF/DA partnership. ADAC has grown substantially, not only in membership but also in terms of influence, and has led to the DA Federal Constitution being amended so that it now has a formal representation in meetings of the Federal Executive.

Currently, the major focus for both the DA and the FNF is the upcoming local government elections in 2011, where the DA aims to win a large number of new municipalities in all nine provinces, either with an outright majority or by forming coalitions with other opposition parties. Forming coalitions with other political par-ties is a new and strange phenomenon to the DA. However, the FNF is in a strong position to advise the DA on the coalition process, due to its strong links with the Federal Democratic Party (FDP) in Germany.

The FNF plans to fly in experts on coalition governments from Germany to come and speak to and help train future negotiators at all three levels in the DA, in order to assist the party with this future process that will have very big implications for the growth and development of the DA. With regard, to the question of the possi-bility of increasing the party’s contribution to consultancy measures, I have had a discussion with Barabara Groeblinghoff on this issue, and we both agree that the only way for the DA to do so would be to take over paying the salaries of FNF staff, as currently the party is paying for all or the majority of the costs, in teamwork of partnership with the FNF, for the consultancy services that are provided to its va-rious structures. The DA believes its contribution to consultancy is currently at an

optimum level, and we can therefore not see any room for increasing the current contributions we make.

However, the DA as a party is of the opinion that it should play a bigger advocacy role with other liberal parties especially in the South African Development Commu-nity (SADC) region. We would consider it an honour to do this in partnership with the FNF as we believe we have over the years developed invaluable experience and have some important ideas on best practice in the African context.

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6. An US-View on effective party-assistance

Daniel Cohen, political consultant

David Cohen, who as state director ran Obama’s caucus campaign in Nevada, and who managed the election campaign for both Rory Reid running for Governor of Nevada and Jill Derby running for Congress, gave us a US-view on effective party-assistance. At first he started with a short overview over the caucus campaign in Nevada before telling us more about Obamas national campaign.

Obama started with a very small team, but at the end 300 people worked from Ob-amas election headquarters in Chicago. The team was split in to different groups with special responsibilities. One team was responsible for text messaging, pod casts, and video clips; 25 people only answered incoming emails; 25 people did only data research and ran phone banks. The campaigning team also outsourced polls questionnaires, to make specialized emails for target groups. Just ten people organized the office.

Obama used the internet to build a topdown organization that equipped volun-teers to act as surrogates for the campaign, though with direction from campaign headquarters. He tried to get people involved through online workshops such as "How to create a fun raising page”, iPod applications, and Google ads for polls. These tools created micro spaces which could be used as platform for direct mar-keting with calls, postcards. For example, the only goal for the Obama-Webpage, known as MyBO (www.mybarackobama.com) was to inform the public about Ob-ama and his family.

In addition they had www.voteforchange.com, which informed the people about Obama´s political opinions, debates, and current news. Obama also hired a profes-sional writer from "The Nation” as official campaign blogger.

Since the successful Obama primary campaign, digital media and their impact on elections have much been talked about. However, at the end they also enforced personal marketing, because it was cheaper to pay for students to go from door-to-door to hand out caucus pledge cards and explain Obamas campaign, than to set up media adds. The supporter could answer questions directly, and bring a per-sonal touch to the campaign.

7. The bilateral NIMD-approach of strengthening political parties

Jasper Veen, Regional Director Africa

Introduction

NIMD´s approach is underpinned by its three main guiding principles: non-partisan/ inclusiveness, local ownership, and partnership. The inclusive approach means that NIMD works with all parliamentary political parties – not just the opposition or ruling party. Local ownership means that the local partners identify and prioritize their own needs and design their own policies, and are responsible for implementing their own programmes. For NIMD, partnership means a spirit of mutual respect, transparency and mutual responsibility, which is paramount in a partner relation where one side is financially dependent on the other.

NIMD provides direct assistance to over 150 political parties of which the vast majority is in Sub-Sahara Arica. Following a process of internal party consulta-tion, parties present to NIMD a multi-annual plan and subsequently an annual plan highlighting a number of specific objectives for institutional strengthening and capacity building. Parties are assisted by NIMD staff or facilitators in defining strategic and realistic objectives, strategies, activities, and performance indica-tors. After approval of the annual plan NIMD signs a individual contract with the political parties.

Strong accountability mechanisms are put in place to ensure the implementation of the annual objectives: spot-checks, monitoring, and evaluation, narrative and financial reports, and an audit are agreed between NIMD and recipient guide the partnership. A breach of these conditions would result in the withdrawal of the support.

Although NIMD’s cooperation with political parties in Sub-Sahara Africa has yielded important results, notably by enhancing frequent contact between national, regional, and local party representatives in the period between elections, the overall process of institutionalisation faces numerous challenges. Based on its first five years of expe-rience in working with political parties and relevant research, NIMD is in the process of developing a revised and updated bilateral support strategy.

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Lessons learned

a) Content

• ThemostpositiveimpactofNIMD’ssupportprogrammehasbeentotogreatlyimprove contact between the national party leadership and their regional rank-and-file in the period between elections. Independent monitoring re-ports indicate that internal party communication has improved. In addition, in some countries many public events were organised by individual parties, or by parties collectively, at the local level in these periods.

• For some parties, internal accountability has greatly improved. Regionalrank-and-file members questioned their national leaders during internal party meetings. But for other parties, national leaders used (NIMD funded) projects to entrench their own positions and dictate party positions to lower ranks.

• Linkingcross-partyandindividualpartysupporthasprovedsuccessfulinthearea of policy development and outreach (communication). In Zambia, for example, a debate on improved access to media in the run-up to the 2006 elections, between the Minister of Information, the heads of media, and senior party representatives, was followed by a cross-party training on issue based campaigning. Subsequently all parties were individually enabled to draft a media strategy following an internal consultative process, and come up with a twopage issuebased agenda. These were then published together and big inter-party meetings were organised in every province where the policy issues were discussed.

• Providingsupporttoproposalsfocussingoninternalpartyelectionscausedmany headaches in the absence of a clear NIMD strategy. Without reliable membership data available, in the context of severe internal wrangles and huge amounts of floating funds, supporting true internal party democracy has proved far from easy.

b) Management

• At the start of the programme, NIMD support projects were sometimesmonopolised by a few party representatives who pursued their own agenda. Their aim was first and foremost to strengthen their own power basis within the party and not so much to strengthen the party institutionally. It is impor-tant to (i) have all major documents tabled at the NEC meetings and signed by 3-4 key players within the party, and (ii) ensure project management is conducted by technical staff in stead of politicians themselves (who do try to control the process).

Strategic considerations for the future

A number of strategic choices have been made within NIMD based on the expe-rience of party-assistance during the last years:

a) Focus on a specific aspect of party institutionalization (niche): Policy debate and development

b) link party support to the electoral cycle,

c) find a balance between generic approaches and countryspecific analysis.

With respect to a)

analyzing the institutionalization process of African political parties requires an holistic approach, integrating external and internal factors influencing the possi-bilities of further institutional strengthening. But when it comes to supporting the strengthening of such process by NIMD, with a very modest budget available and a minor influence on many of the influential factors, a specific focus is required. A specific niche for NIMD in the broad arena of possible interventions is needed. This strategic choice, nevertheless, should still leave sufficient possibilities for African political parties to take ownership over the content of their institutional strengthe-ning programmes as supported by NIMD and possibly other contributors.

NIMD will focus much of its bilateral support to the increase of policy relevance for African multi-party democracies. (voice, accountability).

Policy issues have become more and more important during recent elections in numerous African countries. Issues that were hotly debated, amongst others, edu-cation, Chinese involvement in the home-country, youth (un)employment, agricu-ltural policies. In some elections these issues proved even more important than personalities.

Political parties are the main vehicles for connecting citizens concerns ("Voice“) on various terrains with national policies. Internal policy based discussions could ensure the translating of citizens voices into national policies. Issues of accoun-tability are inevitably about policy – about whether policy choices in institutional settings are compatible with the preferences of political principals.

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Time X Actors

Before During After

Citizens Participation Attention Obligation

RepresentativesMobilisation (pro-con) influence Compliance

Rulers Accessibility DeliberationResponsive-ness

The more citizens participate actively, the more attention they will pay to the sub-sequent process, and the more likely they will feel obligated to conform to whatever is decided – even if they opposed the decision themselves.

Representatives will play a key role in mobilisation, by telling their constituents what is at stake and canvassing their opinion. During the making of a decision, these representatives compete under pre-established rules against rival sets of representatives to influence its substance. Should they fail, it is understood they will nonetheless comply with the result and try to persuade their supporters to accept it as well.

The more that rulers provide accessibility to the greatest number and widest vari-ety of individual citizens or organisations from civil society – the more informati-on they will carry into restricted deliberations, and the greater the likelihood that the decisions they eventually take will be responsive to the interest of the citizens and their representatives.

Strengthening the policybased capacity of political parties also enables the strengthening of constructive relations with civil society organisations that maintain policy relevant data and analysis in particular fields of expertise.

Parliamentarian coalitions have the possibility of directly influencing official na-tional policies and holding the executive to account. A detailed (countrybased) analysis of the existing support activities to parliaments, strategic entry points for NIMD, will form the basis of increased NIMD support to the party – parliamenta-rian caucus relations and policy capacity of the caucuses.

In cooperation with various media associations (joint programme with RNTC), the outreach of policy issues will also enable a better informed citizenry and impro-ved image of political parties. Relevant data from local opinion research and the Afrobarometer will be used as input to these debates.

Thus politicians and political parties play a central role in making accountability work by their ability to articulate and aggregate citizens‘ interest and through le-gislatures who lie at the nexus of interstate and electoral accountability.

With respect to b)

as countries go through an electoral cycle, the main activities of political parties shift accordingly and therefore should their plans and NIMD support reflect the ‘phase’ the parties are at. Within the NIMD’s revised bilateral support strategy, the relation between party support and the electoral cycle is quite central.

Most (opposition) parties are dormant between elections and only surface shortly before an election. It is important to ensure that contact between the national and local level within parties is maintained in between elections. There are some 10 % of active rank-and-file that needs to be kept busy to keep the party alive. That is a great added value of NIMD work, and a great result so far. Too much activity at the local level depends on an MP of a given constituency, which would be impor-tant to ensure party presence and activities are maintained.

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Various institutional strengthening activities can be covered under the CMD pro-gramme (cross-party programme). The bilateral programme will focus on assisting the parties to internally discuss and develop policy positions, to network with re-levant stakeholders and to strengthen the parliamentarian caucuses in this area. Ensuring that contact between the national and local branches is maintained is an important underlying objective.

As for most parties, the parliamentary caucus is the only visible functioning part: in the dormant period the link between the party and the parliamentarians needs to be addressed.

In addition, as NIMD has been modestly successful in strengthening the link bet-ween the central and local party, this will continue to be an area of focus especially around policy issues on the local level, service delivery (MDGs) not only through engaging with citizens but also feeding policy concerns back to headquarters and subsequently parliament, and thereby strengthening vertical and horizontal accoun-tability through meritbased policy debates which could work towards adhering to more formal in stead of informal politics.

With respect to c)

there is no universal model for party assistance. There is need for context specific analysis and interventions. In some countries, for example, institutionalisation of the party system might not be an objective at all and the focus might be strengthe-ning stability. NIMD’s bilateral support between 2011 – 2016 should therefore be first and foremost based on countryspecific analysis, objectives and realistic inter-ventions. A number of (generic) questions should guide the definition of country specific approaches towards the party system.

In order to have some form of standardisation, there is also the possibility to come up with a menu of possible support activities and interventions, linked to the elec-toral cycle (see above).

Management of bilateral Programme

➤ Internal consultation / participation in defining party priorities:

NIMD will ensure that priorities for institutional strengthening within a party are based on a process of internal consultation with its members and specific interest groups (e.g. women, youth).

➤ Increasing project & financial management capacity within political parties:

NIMD will continue to fund political parties directly. In 2010 a baseline will be conducted within each individual party assessing (the gapas within) its financial management capacity.

Pro-active support will be given to the parties to ameliorate their capacity in this area throughout the year.

In addition, non-political, administratively trained people will be required to conduct the financial management duties. NIMD will not accept political re-presentatives of a party to continue performing this task.

➤ Monitoring and evaluation in late 2009 / early 2010:

the toolkit with indicators for party strengthening as provided by the M&E working group will be translated for countryspecific indicators (mainly related to the policy development and debates within parties).

➤ Financial contribution by political parties:

NIMD will, on an annual basis, reduce the percentage of its contribution to African parties’ national budgets, certainly in countries where public funding is assured. It will continue to assist political parties in adhering to the political parties acts to ensure financial competence especially where state funding is provided.

Veen – Discussion

Non-parliamentary parties are not being considered in the project: how is an equal political level field for all parties ensured, especially for those parties with poten-tial to enter parliament?

Mr. Veen admits that NIMD projects are inclusive.

In Ghana, domestic legal provisions for party funding (Ghana Political Parties Law Act 574) prohibit direct or indirect funding by non-citizens. How does NIMD ap-proach this legal situation? Mr. Veen assures that NIMD adheres to the political parties’ laws in all it’s project countries.

There is a need for coordination of programming where NIMD and FNF have pro-jects with the same parties. Mr. Veen acknowledges that coordination has to be strengthened. The participation of NIMD in this conference therefore is to stimu-late future cooperation.

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8. Working Groups’ Recommendations (find the guiding questions in the annexe)

Working Group 1) General benchmarks for FNF’s cooperation with liberal parties abroad.

To start a long-term commitment with a political party the FNF requires the fol-lowing preconditions:

➤ a programme which covers liberal key issues (individual rights, separation of church and state, market-economy etc.) or at least a visible liberal orienta-tion;

➤ a stable organizational structure

➤ a pool of active members,

➤ transparent inner party procedures.

The party’s membership in the Liberal International however should not automati-cally lead to a cooperation with the FNF. Likewise leaving the Liberal International or joining another international party federation should not automatically lead to an end of the cooperation with the FNF.

For the ongoing cooperation between the FNF and a political party the following minimal requirements are necessary:

➤ open access to party representatives and information,

➤ time, space and willingness to cooperate,

➤ a permanent interlocutor within the party,

➤ support by the party leadership, i.e. readiness to implement recommenda-tions.

A contract signed by both partners would be the best legal basis for a cooperation. However, in many countries contracts between a political parties and a foreign organisations are illegal.

Each cooperation with a political party should start off with a strategic planning workshop.

During this workshop a rigorous appraisal of the current situation (strength, weak-

nesses etc.) and a clear long-term strategy (4-5 years), including a time-activity plan, needs to be carried out. It is important that the strategy also covers the time between elections. Yearly “milestones” for assessment and adjustment should be fixed. This new approach to political consultancy – called “structured consulta-tion cycles” – can lead to more effectiveness and efficiency because cooperation between the FNF and the party is more continuous and on a long-term basis.

The isolated, sporadic deployment of consultants which we have seen during the last decades have often shown little effectiveness and sustainability. More often than not consultations have only taken place before elections and recommenda-tions by the consultants have not been followed by implementation.

The closer the cooperation between the FNF and the party’s representatives and leadership is, the better are the results. Therefore a direct cooperation with parties is preferable and the presence of FNF staff in geographical proximity to the party is the key asset! As a consequence the FNF should reconsider its office-structure abroad on the basis of the existence of an important liberal party.

A revision of the consultation strategy can become necessary when one of the fol-lowing situations occurs:

➤ party enters parliament/government,

➤ heavy internal rifts within the party,

➤ splits into wings,

➤ election of a new leadership.

Possible indicators for success are:

➤ elections results (they do matter),

➤ number of parliamentary initiatives,

➤ liberal policy concepts,

➤ organisational reform of the party.

The FNF should finish it’s cooperation with a party in the case that:

➤ the party’s ideology becomes illiberal (e.g. the case of Mel Zelaya in Hondu-ras),

➤ a reputational risk exists for the FNF (e.g. case of corruption),

➤ the party suffers „electoral death“,

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➤ when it becomes clear that the party needs an unreasonable timeframe to mature to a liberal party.

Working Group 2) FNF instruments in support of liberal parties ab-road. How can we increase their effectiveness and efficiency?

Input: Manfred Eisenbach

Mr. Eisenbach presented key findings of the recent evaluation of the “International Academy for Leadership” (IAF) and FNF information programmes for political party-representatives. Both instruments show quite satisfactory results. However, further improvement could be gained by implementing the following suggestions:

a) stronger focus on the transfer of liberal solutions from abroad into the German political discussion (the third objective of the “Auslandsstrategie”);

b) seminars for high-level politicians need to take place in Berlin (not in the IAF) to give participants a chance to meet with liberals in the legislative and exe-cutive;

c) better Integration of regional offices abroad and the IP-staff during the prepa-ration of programmes;

d) and group-coaching for high-level politicians.

Discussion

Right now, IAF programmes do not correspond directly to the FNF-Auslandsstrategie, because they don’t address specific questions of political parties. But they could, if the programmes focussed more on:

– campaign techniques,

– internet as means of political communication,

– experiences with coalitions and alliances,

– performance control and training of public representatives and party staff,

– gaining profile and influence as opposition party.

The planning of IAF events and activities (including study tours) should be managed more flexibly so that demand can be fulfilled at shorter notice when necessary.

The FNF should use more modern and timely skills as many projects abroad do already. This can be achieved by training the FNF staff in state of the art and tar-get group oriented methodology. A good example are the Liberal Democrats (UK). FNF headquarters needs to identify new approaches and techniques and build up a data base.

The FNF should also try to better coordinate political education, dialogue and con-sultancy wherever possible. FNF headquarters should leave the development of the right mixture of different instruments in and to the projects. The IAF could be used for the training of trainers.

It is important to strengthen intraregional and interregional cooperation through the exchange of knowledge and experts. The FNF should allow interregional ex-change programmes on an experimental basis in those projects which have the necessary resources and where demand exists (e.g. between countries like Brazil, South Africa and India etc.)

Working Group 3) International cooperation of liberal parties under scrutiny

It was noted, that verifying the impact of the international and regional networks is difficult as they lack tracking mechanisms to monitor the impact of interventions by the respective networks. This is a consequence of lack of both strategic policy and immediate response. To understand brand and value becomes important.

General recommendations to international and regional networks and FNF include directions to:

➤ Provide for the database, research, comparative studies and information on international policies.

➤ Make stricter checks on liberal values even if networks are to lose members.

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, ALDE (Input by Jules Maaten)

Particular questions to ALDE (and ELDR):

➤ Is strategic leadership exercised by ALDE?

➤ Is ALDE a cohesive political force?

➤ Is ALDEs foreign affairs work of use to international liberalism?

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➤ What role can ALDE play in the relationship between decision makers and the electorate?

The ALDE caucus in the European Parliament (EP) is composed of both Liberals and Conservatives. It is to preferably pick up issues/policies within the jurisdiction of the European Parliament like health, immigration and climate change. For his work the caucus has a sufficient budget.

The composition makes it difficult to find MEPs who are supportive and commit-ted to initiate resolutions or make written questions. ALDE rather waits for inputs. ALDE has a shifting thematic profile; it seems to be hostage to/dominated by con-servatives. ALDE provides support of member parties by urgent response on issues in the respective language.

Lack of impact is demonstrated in the work with the Foreign Affairs Committee of EP which is rather powerless while the Human Rights Committee of the European Parliament gives ALDE more opportunities to contribute and is more effective.

European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, ELDR (Input by Daniel Tanahatoe)

ELDR shows a highly leveraged impact by having leaders meetings before Europe Council meetings. The budget of €1.5 million is sufficient to cater for events and campaigns. Member parties can apply for ELDR funds “Politics and Information”. The network is weak in Southern Europe and has been wiped out in Central Euro-pe. It seeks for strategies to provide support to parties especially in those regions. Networking beyond Europe is left to Liberal International.

Liberal International, LI (Input by Emil Kirjas)

Particular questions for the LI:

➤ How to improve profile, influence, presence of LI at international level, especially outside Europe?

➤ How can LI be made more attractive to its members?

➤ Are there strategies to win new and influential members?

The Liberal International now has more than 100 member parties. More than half come from Europe. The LI communicates with even more parties, partners and in-stitutions worldwide. The LI recognizes the importance of the regional party net-works.

The LI aims to serve the parties through know-how transfer, best practices, and improved policies. But its budget of US$ 260.000 is insufficient to render the ex-pected services. It is about motivating parties to seek LI support, while capacities do not allow satisfy demand.

However, the LI has the intention to provide a knowledge base for parties through weekly newsletters and a new website (2010). The LI also intends to be more in-fluential at the UN level and have a deeper impact on such international events as Copenhagen but admits its lack in capacity.

To meet 100 different interests, the LI considers management of organisation and topics as the biggest challenge in the way of group to allow group benefit.

The LI is to keep issues high so to support parties locally. The question to be raised is of public action versus quiet diplomacy. This refers also to thorough selection processes for prospective parties and issue of behaviour after joining and mecha-nisms to expel parties even though networks are to lose members. A comparative view of SI, IDU, and CDI has to be taken into account.

Neurus O. Acosta and Manfred Richter (from left to right)

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In reference to the liberal data base on policies the LI intents to cooperate with other liberal bodies providing data on parliamentarians, European experts, and a calendar of events as is being done by ALDE, ELDR and FNF. These databases are to be integrated with special access privileges.

Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) (Input by Nereus O. Acosta PhD)

CALD, on one hand, is challenged by its 10 member parties and by events in Thai-land, Philippines etc. On the other hand, efforts are being made to win parties from Indonesia and Mongolia.

Founded in 1994 and with its offices in Manila, the budget of € 120.000 is rather small. Membership fees support one staff member, while the overall budget comes from partners. Improved benefits for members are expected through new media applications and more branding efforts. In this light, a research study is being un-dertaken by CALD to determine the role of the opposition in Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia. Special attention is given to the solidarity with Liberals in Burma.

Network of Arab Liberals (NAL) (Input by Dr. O. al-Ghazeli Harb)

Different perceptions of liberalism exist in the Arab world. While Islamists distingu-ish between secular and islamic freedoms, liberalism should rather seek consensus on values and fundamental rights and not to impose “truths” on others. And it is rather the question on the relationship between state and religion, which guides Arab liberals in their quest with state and religious leaders including modern and fundamental (Wahaabis) positions.

To stimulate dialogue, outside factors have been and always are very important. The upcoming LI-Congress in Cairo will take this into account. It should not avoid confrontational discussions between Liberals and Islamists, which are necessary to determine liberal policies adapted for the Arab World.

The FNF should become a “clearing house” for liberal policies. It should build trust among international decision makers to raise their interest in liberal analysis and policies. It also should formalise input to the LI in order to allow the LI to digest information into standard paragraphs in the annual report, motions to international parliaments, list of parliamentarians involved in foreign affairs. FNF may become local interlocutor to transform and translate certain content of database.

Working group 4: Political communication/political marketingInput: Frederik Ferié, Vice-President IFLRY

Results

Almost all politicians, whether in democratic or non-democratic regimes, use the instruments and techniques of marketing - but most of them do not admit to it openly.

As a scientific field of inquiry, political marketing has gained popularity in recent decades. There are different ways whereby science approaches the topic of poli-tical marketing: political scientists tend to focus on the management of electo-ral campaigns, while communication science’s interest is mostly with the use of communication instruments. As a third paradigm, marketing attempts to attain a more holistic understanding of political marketing. This includes the management of parties in between elections and the long-term relationship between a party and the electorate.

It is a common misunderstanding in the media and the public that marketing is similar to “promotion”. By this, the assumption is made that the use of marketing requires a “follower-mentality” of a party, which inevitably leads to populism. Ho-wever, this assumption is false. Political marketing can be best defined as seeking “to establish, maintain and enhance long-term political relationships at a profit for society, so that the objectives of the individual political actors and organisations involved are met. This is done by mutual exchange and fulfilment of promises.” (Henneberg 1996)

Political marketing significantly differs from product marketing, but shares strong similarities with services marketing, especially with services that affect one’s per-sonal life significantly and require a trust-based relationship, such as in healthcare, insurances and financial planning.

The goal of strategic Political Marketing Management is finding, planning and managing the optimal marketing mix of all instruments possible. It is crucial that not only the best marketing instruments are found but also that their use is coor-dinated in order to reach the set goals effectively and efficiently.

One set of marketing instruments that have seen a significant change since the emergence of the Internet is communication instruments. In recent years politi-cal communication has seen a rapid enhancement of the use of new social media, in addition to the traditionally used broadcast media. New social media have the

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advantage that they allow direct communication between political parties and politicians on the one side and the electorate and other stakeholders on the other. Furthermore, new social media can be used to spread content such as policy opini-ons, utilizing the multiplier capabilities of social media instruments, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, web logs (blogs) and YouTube, among others.

Consequences for the project activities of FNF

The FNF works in environments with very diverse media conditions and the tools differ from country to country. The FNF already works on these topics, but with different instruments and with different intensity.

New social media are becoming increasingly important in politics; we ignore them at our peril. New communication tools need to be used strategically. All related activities should be embedded in a comprehensive political strategy. The strategy has to be developed for each project with the respective target groups. The partner party needs to conform with the strategy. There is no scope for a central strategy of the FNF.

Political communication is amongst the core skills of political parties. The FNF should be at the cutting edge of it and should intensify training activities for local media specialists among its staff members. The FNF has to know and understand what is going on, what the tools are and how they can be used. Political commu-nication should become a priority within FNF.

The projects abroad have to prioritize the needed skills. Some basic knowledge has to become compulsory knowledge. The FNF has to organize the necessary training in the regions. The FNF should continue to train local media specialists (like Abe Olandres, Wael Abbas, Gulmina Bilal etc). According to FNF guidelines they can assist FNF in the work with the parties. The FNF needs to manage the media com-petence. This could be a task for the Division IP.

Part

icip

ants

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Annexes

• Programme

• Participants´list

• Speakers’bios

• Guidingquestionsforworkinggroups

Programme

Monday, 28th September 2009

09.00 am Welcome, conference outline and objectives Harald Klein, Director International Politics, FNF, Potsdam

09.15 am International party assistance – new agenda and unsolved pro-blems?

Gero Erdmann, Director Berlin-Office, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Berlin

Discussion

10.30 am Coffee break

11.00 am 20 years of political consultancy by FNF Peter Schröder, Political Consultant, Siegburg

Discussion

12.30 am Comparative analysis of four liberal parties in new EU-member states in Central & Eastern Europe

Ulrich Niemann, Regional Director Eastern Europe & Central Asia, Sofia

13.00 pm Lunch (cafeteria FNF-head office)

14.00 pm Panel Discussion: FNF party-assistance and democracy promotion around the globe

Africa Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa Athol Trollip, Parliamentary Leader of the Democratic

Alliance, Cape Town

Asia Liberal Party (LP), Philippines Nereus Acosta, former Congressman, Secretary General CALD (Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats),

Manila Latin America Movimiento Vamos con Eduardo, Nicaragua

Eduardo Montealegre, MP, President ”Movimiento Vamos con Eduardo“ , Managua

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Mediterranean Countries Democratic Front Party (DFP), Egypt Dr. Osama Ghazali Harb, President DFP, Cairo

Eastern Europe Reform Party, Estonia Arto Aas, Head of Prime Minister’s Office, Tallin

Discussion

16.00 pm Coffee break

16.30 pm An US-view on effective party–assistance Daniel Cohen, political consultant, USA

Discussion

17.30 pm The bilateral NIMD-approach of strengthening political parties Jasper Veen, Regional Director Africa, Netherlands Institute for Mul-

tiparty Democracy (NIMD), former LI-Secretary General, The Hague

Discussion

18.30 pm End of Working Day

19.30 pm Transfer by bus from Hotel Avendi to Schloss Cecilienhof

20.00 pm Dinner hosted by:

Dr. Wolf-Dieter Zumpfort, Vice-President, FNF Rolf Berndt, FNF-Executive Chairman

Venue: Restaurant Schloss Cecilienhof Neuer Garten Potsdam

22.00 pm Transfer by bus to Hotel Avendi and Hotel Mélia, Berlin

Tuesday, 29th September 2009

09.00 am Meeting in the plenary, Kaminzimmer

Introduction into working groups

09.30 am Working groups

WG 1: General benchmarks for FNF’s co-operation with liberal parties abroad.

Input: Peter Schröder, Political Consultant

WG 2: FNF instruments in support of liberal parties abroad. How can we increase their effectiveness and efficiency? Input: Manfred Eisenbach, Political Consultant, Berlin

WG 3: International co-operation of liberal parties under scrutiny Inputs: Emil Kirjas, Secretary General, Liberal International,

London Daniel Tanahatoe, ELDR, Brussels Jules Maaten, MEP 1999-09, Brussels Nereus Acosta, Secretary General CALD, Manila

WG 4: Political Communication / Political Marketing Input: Frederik Ferié, Vize-President IFLRY

10.30 am Coffee break

11.00 am Continuation of working groups

13.00 pm Lunch (Cafeteria FNF-Head Office)

14.00 pm Recommendations for the future co-operation of FNF with liberal parties abroad (Presentation of working group results)

14.00 pm Group 1

14.45 pm Group 2

15.30 pm Coffee break

16.00 pm Group 3

16.45 pm Group 4

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17.30 pm How do we follow-up from here ? Eva-Maria Koehler, Head of Department Strategic Controlling & Eva-

luation

17.45 pm Wrap-up and concluding remarks Harald Klein, Director International Politics, FNF

18.00 pm End of conference

Free evening

Wednesday, 30th September 2009

Continuation of „Auslandsrunde” for regional directors

Departure of project directors

Participants’ ListFacilitator Manfred Richter, Member of the Board of directors, FNF,

former member of the German Parliament and former Mayor of the City of Bremerhaven, Political Consultant

Speakers Gero Erdmann, Director Berlin-Office, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Berlin

Daniel Cohen, Political Consultant, Washington D.C. Peter Schröder, Political Consultant, Siegburg Jasper Veen, Regional Director Africa, Netherlands

Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), former LI-Secretary General, The Hague

Counterparts Arto Aas, Head of Prime Minister’s Office, Tallin (Reform Party)

Nereus Acosta, former Congressman, Secretary General Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD), Manila

Osama Ghazali Harb, President Democratic Front Party, Cairo

Eduardo Montealegre, MP, President ”Movimiento Vamos con Eduardo“, Managua

Athol Trollip, Parliamentary Leader of the Democratic Alliance, Cape Town

ALDE Jules Maaten, former MEP (1999-09), Brussels

ELDR Daniel Tanahatoe, Political Unit, Brussels

FNF-Staff abroad Africa Hubertus von Welck, Regional Director, Johannesburg Barbara Groeblinghoff, Johannesburg, Project Director,

Cape Town, Tanzania, Zimbabwe Werner Nowak, Dakar, Project Director Ghana, Senegal

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Central, South East Ulrich Niemann, Regional Director, Sofiaand East Europe, Peter-Andreas Bochmann, Sofia, Project DirectorSouth Caucasus and Bulgaria, Macedonia, Moldavia, RomaniaCentral Asia Christian Christ-Thilo, Belgrad, Project Director Albania,

Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia Borek Severa, Prague, Project Director Baltic States,

Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia

Latin America Ulrich Wacker, Regional Director, Mexico City Rainer Erkens, Sao Paulo, Project Director Brazil Christian Lüth, Tegucigalpa, Project Director Guatemala,

Honduras, Nicaragua

Mediterranean Ronald Meinardus, Regional Director, CairoCountries Alexander Knipperts, Algier, Project Director Maghreb

European Institutions Jürgen Wickert, Regional Director, Brussels& North AmericaSouth Asia René Klaff, Regional Director, New Delhi Southeast Asia Rainer Adam, Regional Director, Bangkok Siegfried Herzog, Manila, Project Director Philippines Rainer Heufers, Jakarta, Project Director Indonesia Moritz Kleine-Brockhoff, des. Project Director Birma,

Cambodia, Malaysia

FNF-Head Office Detmar Döring, Director Liberal Institute (Tuesday only) Harald Klein, Director International Politics Eva-Maria Köhler, Head of Department Strategic

Controlling & Evaluation Birgit Lamm, Head of Department International

Conferences and Domestic Programmes Gabriele Reitmeier, Head of Africa/Latin America

Regional Department and Political Consultancy & International Policy Analysis Department

Michael Roick, Head of Central, South East and East Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia/Mediterranean Countries Regional Department

Christian Taaks, Head of Asia Regional Department

Denise Dittrich, Desk officer Political Consultancy & International Policy Analysis

Ernst Specht, Desk officer Africa & Political Consultancy Saskia Steiger, Assistant to the director International

Politics

Political Consultants Manfred Eisenbach, Berlin Wulf Pabst, Aachen Rolf Steltemeier, Berlin/Heidelberg

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Speakers‘ bios

Arto Aas, EstoniaHead of the Prime Minister’s Office

Mr. Aas has been serving as the Head of the Prime Minister’s Office since April 2007

Since 2002, Arto Aas has worked as the campaign-manager in the headquarters of the Reform Party; he has been also managing the communication unit of the Party to date.

Before that, Arto Aas served as an advisor in the Tallinn City Council and as an advisor to the Deputy Mayor responsible for the areas of road construction, envi-ronment and city planning.

Having graduated from the specialty of Public Administration in the Tallinn Uni-versity of Technology, Arto Aas took additional courses in the University of Tur-ku and currently participates in the University of Tartu MA programme in PR and Communication.

Nereus Acosta, PhilippinesCongressman, House of Representatives (1998-2007) CALD Secretary General 2005-present

Dr. J.R. Nereus Acosta is the current Secretary Gene-ral of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats and the former Secretary General of the Liberal Party of the Philippines. He served as representative of Bukidnon

province in Northern Mindanao to the House of Representatives for three conse-cutive terms (1998-2007). Besides sponsorship of major environmental legislation on clean water, solid waste management and biodiversity protection, he was the principal author of the groundbreaking Clean Air Act that has become a model of environmental legislation in Asia. Dr. Acosta served as Chairman of the Commit-tee on Ecology and Vice-Chairman of the Committees on Science and Technology, Human Rights, and Foreign Relations of the House of Representatives. He has re-presented the Philippines in numerous international forums, including the United Nations Special Assembly on HIV/AIDS and the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, where he served as the Deputy Secretary General.

An academic and civil society stalwart, he earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Hawaii as an East West Center Scholar. He received a BA in Poli-tical Science from the University of the Philippines, an MA in Public Affairs (Inter-national Relations and Political Studies concentration) from the Indiana Universi-ty of Pennsylvania and attended the special programs on Leaders in Development Program (1999) and Environmental Economics (2002) at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University. In 2004 he was named the first Filipino World Fellow of Yale University.

Dr. Acosta is now Associate Professor at the Asian Institute of Management and the Ateneo de Manila University. He continues to be active in microfinance, rural development and environmental protection projects in his native Bukidnon.

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Gero Erdmann, GermanyDirector Berlin-office, German Institute of Global and Area Studies

Since 2009 Gero Erdmann is head of GIGA Research Pro-gramme 1: Legitimacy and Efficiency of Political Systems and Head of the GIGA-Berlin Office.

Between 1999-2009 he served as senior research fellow at the GIGA Institute of African Affairs with the following responsibilities: democracy and democratiza-tion, political parties, civil society, co-operative societies, traditional rule, human rights.

From 1994-1999 he was senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy, Ruhr University of Bochum.

Between 1986-1994 he worked as research fellow (free lance) at the Arnold-Berg-straesser-Institute for Socio-cultural Research, Freiburg.

1985/86 he was research fellow at the Economic Research Bureau, University of Dar es Salaam, and at the Co-operative College Nairobi.

He has published extensively.

• Studies:

1973-1981: Magister Artium in Political Science and History at the University of Freiburg;

1982-1983: Master of Arts in Politics, History, Ethnography of Eastern Africa (Swahili) at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,

• 1990:PhD,PoliticalScience,UniversityofFreiburg.

Osama al-Ghazali Harb, EgyptPresident of the „Democratic Front Party

In March 2008, Dr. Osama al-Ghazali Harb was elected President of the „Democratic Front Party“, the most recent liberal party established in Egypt, having been approved in mid 2007. Due to his conviction that the

National Democratic Party, the ruling party in Egypt, is not committed to effecting democratic change in Egypt, Dr. Harb resigned from there and took the initiative to invite independent figures to establish the Democratic Front Party.

Dr. Harb has been a member of the Shura Council (upper house of the Egyptian par-liament) since 1995 and is also a member of the National Council for Human Rights and a founding member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs. Dr. Harb has also chaired the Arab Association of Political Science between 1990 and 1998.

Dr. Harb obtained his PhD in Political Science from Cairo University. He worked as a researcher and later Chair of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. Afterwards, Dr. Harb became the Editor-in-Chief of Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya (Interna-tional Politics) periodical in replacement of Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, the previous Secretary General of the United Nations (1991).

Dr. Harb has several books, researches and articles published in Arabic and English. He has also participated in conferences and seminars all over the world.

Dr. Harb is married and has two daughters.

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Harald Klein, Germany Director of the Department International Politics, Friedrich Naumann Foundation für die Freiheit

Since July 2007, Harald Klein has been the Director of the Department International Politics of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) in Potsdam, responsible for the overall functioning of the Founda-

tion’s programmes in Africa, Asia, North America, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Latin America.

Harald Klein originally joined the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation for Freedom in 1988, starting as project manager and national representative of Peru, at a later time also managing further countries of the Andean region. In 1996, he was ap-pointed Regional Director for Central, Southeast and Eastern Europe, based in Bu-dapest, Hungary. From 2002 to 2007 he has been assigned Regional Director for Latin America based in Mexico-City.

After 19 years based abroad, Harald Klein became Director of FNF’s international work at the headquarters in Potsdam, Germany. He is responsible for the world-wide programmes of FNF, overseeing an annual budget of approx. 23 million Eu-ros (2009).

Born in Trier, Germany in 1955, Harald Klein holds a Master Degree in Political Sci-ence, Sociology and Journalism. He speaks Spanish and English fluently. Together with his wife he lives in the German capital, Berlin.

Eduardo Montealegre MP, Nicaragua

Member of Parliament

In the November 2008 municipal elections in Nicaragua Eduardo Montealegre ran as candidate of the ALN led by his former party, the PLC still ruled by Arnoldo Aleman. Montealegre lost the election to Alexis Arguello, but

alleged that the election was rife with fraud. The municipal elections were highly contested and were held without international observers, due to the Sandinista government’s reluctance to invite any observers. The supposed fraud of the muni-cipal elections resulted in several days of protest mostly limited to Managua.

Two years before in the 2006 general election for president, he ran as the candi-date of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN-PC), a spin-off of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) in alliance with other liberal parties and the Conservative Party. He finished in second place after Daniel Ortega, receiving 28.3 % of the vote. Due to this result he was granted a seat in the Nicaraguan congress.

Before that Eduardo Montealegre served as minister to the presidency in 1998 under Arnoldo Alemán. He also served as foreign minister from 1999 to 2000 in the government of Arnoldo Alemán and as finance minister from 2002 to 2003 in the government of the next President Enrique Bolaños. Subsequently, he served as minister to the presidency of Enrique Bolaños. He announced his split from the PLC in protest of the control of the party by former President Alemán, who was impri-soned for misappropriation of funds. Montealegre objects to an alliance, referred to in the popular media as „El Pacto“, between Arnoldo Alemán and Daniel Ortega, who ran as the candidate of the FSLN in 2006 for the fourth consecutive time since his 1985-1990 presidency, this time successfully. Because of Montealegre’s stand against corruption, Arnoldo Alemán, and Daniel Ortega‘s Sandinista National Libe-ration Front, the U.S. ambassador in Managua openly endorsed his candidacy.

Mr. Montealegre was born in Nicaragua’s capital Managua. He received an B. Sc. in Economics from Brown University in 1976 and an MBA with a focus in finance and strategic planning from Harvard University in 1980. He later became a busi-nessman in Nicaragua.

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Ulrich Niemann, BulgariaHead of the Regional Office for Central, East and Southeast Europe South Caucasus and Central Asia

Ulrich Niemann is head of the regional office for Cen-tral, East and Southeast Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF) in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is an economist by

training, worked previously as FNF representative for Northeast Asia in Seoul, and is a founding member of the Asia-Europe Foundation in Singapore. Before these assignments abroad, he held various positions in the German Federal Government and Parliament, dealing with economic policy issues, German re-unification and European affairs.

Peter Schröder, GermanyPolitical Consultant

Since 1987, had assignments as freelance consultant in more than 75 countries in all parts of the world: Planning for political strategies, consulting in political communi-cations, training adult educators and managers.

Consultation for parties, politicians, non-governmental-organisations, governments, local authorities in strategies for elections, conflict management and negotiations and projects of decentralisation, deregulation, new public management.

Author of the book "Political Strategies“ (at present available in German, English, Spanish, Turkish and Bahasa) and other publications and essays.

Born in Germany in 1943, now living in Siegburg, Nordrhein-Westfalen; married with two children.

Studied at the Christian Albrechts Universität in Kiel (Chemistry and Nutrition).

After his studies he joined the adminsitration of the liberal Free Democratic Party (F.D.P) in Schleswig-Holstein.

1971-1978: General secretary of the federal state organisation of the liberal Free Democratic Party (F.D.P.) in Schleswig Holstein

1978-1982: Head of „Department for communications and elections“ in the head-quarter of the party and at the same time head of „Department for training and programmes“ in the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation.

1982-1987: Director of the advertising agency for social marketing (BOSS).

Since 1987 Director of the "Institute for communication research“ and lecturer in political science at the "Cologne School for Politics and economy“ in Cologne.

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Athol Trollip, South AfricaParliamentary Leader of the Democratic Alliance

Born and bred in Bedford in the Eastern Cape, Athol was deputy head boy and captained the rugby, swimming, water polo and surf lifesaving 1st teams at high school. For 20 years, he farmed his family farm in Bedford, was

Chairman of the Farmers Association, Chairman of the Bedford Club, committee member of various sporting associations, executive member of the Eastern Provin-ce Agricultural Union and the "Smaldeel” Soil Conservation Committee. His com-munity bestowed an honorary life membership for the Bedford Club and Farmer’s Association on him.

Athol was elected Executive Councillor Amathole District Municipality in 1995. In 1999, he was elected to the Legislature and re-elected in 2004. He served as Leader of the DA Caucus and Leader of the Official Opposition in the Eastern Cape before his election to Parliament in 2009.

Within the Party, he has held various positions including DP Provincial Chairperson in 1998 and DA Provincial Leader since 2002. He has served on the Federal Council and Federal Executive since 1998 and 2002 respectively.

Coming from a political family, with his grandfather being a MP for the United Party, and his father a Divisional Councillor, Athol is motivated by community and public service and is accustomed to leadership responsibility. As Eastern Cape lea-der, he led a Province that was recognised by the 2004 Federal Congress for its efforts and received the Province of the Year award. His ability to communicate in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa is a valuable asset.

Athol was elected to Parliament in May 2009, where he was elected DA Parliamen-tary leader. He is also Shadow Minister on the Presidency.

Jasper Veen, NetherlandsRegional Director Africa, Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD)

Mr Jasper Veen joined NIMD in June 2007 as political advisor on behalf of D66 (Dutch social liberal party).

He is the former Secretary General of the London-based Liberal International, the world federation of liberal and progressive democratic par-ties. In this capacity he has maintained a network of 120 liberal parties worldwide and provided support to parties in new democracies whilst building a professional cordial relationship with ministers and parliamentarians worldwide.

He has relevant experience in political party affairs, policy- and decision-making with an emphasis on international issues, management and coordination of poli-tical events and programmes, and statements at an international level.

He has studied political history with a focus on state and nation building and Dutch parliamentary history. He has lived in Botswana for 4 years and in the Uni-ted Kingdom for nearly 7 years.

He is an active member within D66, being a board member of International Demo-cratic Initiative (IDI) and editor of the political science magazine Idee.

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Guiding questions for working groups

Working group 1: General benchmarks for FNF’s cooperation with liberal parties abroad

Input: Peter Schröder, Political Consultant

Which general benchmarks should apply to cooperation between the FNF and lib-eral parties abroad:

1 Selection of parties

• WhichrequirementsshouldpartiesfulfilliftheFNFistoenterintoame-dium- to long-term commitment with them.

2 Ongoing cooperation with parties

• Whataretheminimumperformancerequirementsthatshouldbeachievedduring ongoing cooperation?

• ShouldtheFNFbeclosetothepartyandit’scurrentleadership,orshouldit be an arm’s length relationship (cooperation through national associated organizations)?

• HowcantheFNFensure:

– the continuity of the consulting process,

– the commitment of the partner to the outcomes of consulting sessions, (i.e. implementation of recommendations)

– the sustainability of the outcome.

• HowshouldtheFNFreactifotherconsultantsofferconflictingadvicetoitspartners?

• AretheredevelopmentsorsymptomsinthecooperationbetweenFNFandpolitical parties which should cause FNF to review its consulting concept?

• HowcantheFNFcontributeto:

a. strengthening trust of citizens in parties?

b. ending the party’s financial dependence on chairpersons/sponsors who are often authoritarian and corrupt (concepts for self-financing)?

• HowshouldtheFNFbehavewhenthereis/are:

c. two or more liberal parties in a country,

d. factions’ split from the party or a party break-up,

e. no liberal party in the country,

f. no FNF office infrastructure in a country with an important liberal party?

3 Terminating cooperation with a party

• Whenisittimetostopworkingwithaparty?

• Fromwhichpartiesshouldwedistanceourselvesintheshorttomediumterm? Why?

• Whatwouldbetheconsequencesfortheprojectstructure?

4 Monitoring outcomes and impact

• Howcanwemeasurehowsuccessfulourworkwithpoliticalpartiesis?

• Whatarepossibleindicatorsforsuccess?

• Howdoweensurethatperformanceismonitored,andwhowilldoit?

Please formulate the output of your work as recommendations to the Foun-dation.

Working group 2: FNF tools in support of liberal parties abroad. How can we increase their effectiveness and efficiency?

Input: Manfred Eisenbach, Political Consultant

Is FNF using its tools – political consultancy, policy dialogue and political educa-tion – effectively and efficiently to promote liberal parties abroad? Can the way the tools are used be improved?

1 Are the IAF-activities and information-programs to Germany (Besuchspro-gramme) aligned with the “Strategy for work abroad?” (Auslandsstrategie)

• To what extent do the IAF-activities and information-programs supportcooperation with parties abroad?

• Howdothedialogactivitieslinkupwiththepoliticalconsultancyandpoliti-cal education activities?

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• Whichnewtopicsshouldbeintroducedandwhichtopicscanbediscard-ed?

• Arethereanyinterestingnewmethodsortrainingapproachesthatshouldbe adopted?

2 How should political education and policy dialog activities be used in a complementary way in order to achieve the greatest synergies?

• Whatsortoftoolscouldbeusedforthejointplanningofpoliticalconsul-tancy, political education and policy dialogue?

• Wherewillthemixofactivitiesbedeveloped?Atthecustomer(party)ortop-down (IAF, BP, PB)?

3 In the future, should visiting programs be supplemented to a greater de-gree with interregional programs?

Please formulate the output of your work as recommendations to the Foun-dation.

Working group 3: International Co-operation of liberal parties under scrutiny

Inputs: Emil Kirjas, Secretary General, LI, London

Daniel Tanahatoe, ELDR, Brussels Jules Maaten, MEP 1999-09, Brussels Nereus Acosta, Secretary General CALD, Manila

• Are thecostandeffort thatgo into internationaland regional cooperationbetween parties justified and do they benefit the participants?

• Howcanmemberpartiesderiveagreaterbenefit?• Howcanthetransferofknowledgeandskillsbetweeninternationalandnational

representatives be ensured?

Liberal International

• Howcantheprofile/influence/presenceoftheLIbeimprovedataninternationallevel (i.e. outside of Europe)?

• HowcanLIbemademoreattractivetoitsmemberorganizations?

• How should the Friedrich Naumann Foundation deal with parties that joinanother international federation or association?

• Aretherestrategiesforrecruitingnew,influentialmembersandwhatarethey?

ELDR / ALDE

• In itsParliamentarywork,doweexpect strategic leadership fromtheALDEGroup, or should ALDE follow the leadership of national Liberal Parliamentary Groups in the House of Commons, Bundestag, Folketing, Tweede Kamer etc?

• ShouldweseeALDEasaconvenientcoalitionofparties,manyofwhich(butperhaps not all) are Liberal, who cooperate on a pragmatic basis, or as a cohesive political force?

• CantheforeignaffairsworkofALDEbemademoreusefultosupportinterna-tional Liberalism?

• Europeandemocracyisimperfect:whatrolecanALDEplayincreatingastrongerbond between European decision makers and the electorate?

Please formulate the results of your working group as recommendations to the foundation.

Working group 4: Political communication / Political Marketing

Input: Frederik Ferié, Vice-President of IFLRY

Guiding Questions:

• Arethereanyopportunitiesforvoterrelationshipmanagement,andisthereany demand for it?

• WhatcanFNFachieveintheareaofdesigningandbrandingpolitics?Isthereany demand for such an activity on the part of the parties, and is it even pos-sible in different cultural and language regions?

• ShouldFNF’sconsultingactivitiesextendtocoverconsultingforsocialmarket-ing campaigns?

• Whathasthehighestpriorityinconsulting:politics,structures,oractions?

• ShouldFNFbuymedia-basedcampaignadviceordoesithavetodoitbyitself?

Please formulate the output of your work as recommendations to the Foun-dation.

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NotesNotes

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Notes