It would have been too much to expect, and more than adventurous, to believe in rhetorical and technical innovations on the part of the competing politicians for this second round of elections. However, there was still room for improvement, but it has consisted of making the worst worse worse, especially when the gratuitously aggressive ways and manners are not abandoned.
The difference could rather come from the variable scope of these elections: from the most distant to the closest, from Brussels and Strasbourg, to the autonomy, to the city, town or village of each one. And that, in spite of everything, there was not the murderous urgency of the general elections. For what concerns us, we have seen debates (for example, those of the European elections), where there were up to nine speakers, a number that is mass, multitude and purgatory for any communication consultant. To stand out among so many, to identify the voter and be identified by him or her in order to communicate a glimmer of a message seems in itself a justly remarkable achievement.
However, our observations must be accompanied by two caveats. First, the observable sample has been limited for this writer to the television debates in Madrid (city and region) and Barcelona, in addition to those corresponding to the European elections. On the other hand, we do not want to, and it would be a mistake, to establish a relationship between the communication strategies and the results obtained. It is clear that this would be a far-fetched exercise.
Of the former, it can only be said that although we only see a tenth of the iceberg, what is under the water will not be visible, but it is imaginable: it is all ice, more of the same. Without disparaging other cities and provinces, it is unlikely that we have missed something very good by not seeing more debates from other places.
On the other hand, we did witness more than unusual experiences. Let's take for example something as bizarre as the debate between the candidates for the Madrid Regional Government organised by SER and El País, which was not attended by Díaz AyusoPP candidate, but yes Errejón (without the impediments of the Electoral Board). The performance of the Popular Party in the last legislature was largely discussed, with its representative absent, while in the audience was the last president of the Community, Ángel GarridoLet's see who can improve on that!
No less picturesque was the debate, this time on TeleMadrid, between the candidates for the capital's mayoralty, in which the main protagonist, a Carmena, elevated to a role that was more than charismatic, more like a majesty, castily renounced debating in detail, as if she were above good and evil.
Anti-communism is immortal
But getting into the subject, the most failed, the subject to pass, and in the practical exercise, - except for the smartest in the class, and they are few -, it is still the golden minute, the use of the final minute to advantage. We have seen sixty seconds - and they can be very long - shaky, confused, bewildered, impotent.
Ciudadanos has also persisted in the abuse of visual elements. Once again, photos, posters, graphics, and a plausible ridicule for Silvia Saavedra, Begoña Villacís's substitute in the TeleMadrid debate on the capital's mayoralty. With caricatured touches, much exploited by the social networks, this Lenin tilted to one side, lying down like his mummy, seemed to prove that communism may be dead, but anti-communism is immortal.
However, it was Ciudadanos who, through the mouth of Luis Garicano, brought the most noteworthy novelty, which was true and not pure invention: the revelation that the lists of the coalitions of nationalist parties of the periphery show only the candidates of the autonomous region in which they vote in order to deceive or dissimulate potential voters.
And what about the third act, theatrically speaking (or the third round, more sportingly speaking): what can we fear? The continuity will no longer be that of the campaigns, but of the parliaments themselves. It would be desirable, at least if the political communication strategy is to make a difference, some difference, for party leaders to study these past campaigns and apply themselves to remedying the worst of them. Not only, charitably, for our sake: their - political - lives are at stake here too.
Pablo Carbajosa
Head of the Public Speaking and Effective Writing Department at Proa Comunicación and coordinator of the Debate Club at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid.