By Nikola Spasov

In more than 15 years of working as a political consultant, I have realised that one thing is very difficult to change: the belief among many politicians that politics is one thing, while political PR and communication are something else. That the politician makes decisions and pursues policy independently, while somewhere in another room there are people whose job is to make it all look good.

It doesn’t work that way.

PR is not a repair service for political mistakes

Good PR can do many things. It can make good policy understandable or turn a complex law into a simple message. It can identify a problem before it becomes a crisis, and it can even cushion the impact of a mistake.

But what it cannot do is continuously turn bad policy into good policy.

It can buy time once or change the subject; in certain cases, it can mitigate the damage. But if political decisions continuously produce problems, there is nothing the PR team can do.

Many politicians make the same mistake: they call in the PR team after the decision has already been made. The team should be involved during the planning stage. Not because the PR team should run the country or tell a politician what policies to pursue. That is the opposite extreme, and an even worse one, but more on that another time. The reason is simple: communication is an integral part of political strategy. They are two processes integrated into one. It is part of political intelligence.

Only this approach can ensure consistency between decisions, messages and behaviour. Consistency is among the most important qualities of good politicians and the foundation for building trust among the electorate.

Trust allows room for occasional mistakes

Accumulated trust allows the public to believe a politician even when they do not have a perfect explanation, to forgive a minor mistake, or to give them time when difficult decisions have to be made.

That capital is built through consistency.

A politician who has said one thing and done another ten times may have a perfectly crafted message the eleventh time, and no one will believe them. Another politician may explain something much more clumsily, but if they have previously built a reputation for consistency, the public will trust them.

Once that capital has been spent, communication becomes ineffective. And there is no good PR expert for such a politician. Every message then requires an enormous effort, because the struggle is no longer about delivering a clear message. It is about changing the conviction that this person cannot be trusted.

Advice must not be perceived as a constraint

Many politicians do not have a natural political instinct and do not always understand the effect their behaviour or message will have on public opinion. This can be a major limitation, but if a politician is a good manager and recognises their own limitations, it does not have to be. It is enough to find trusted people who will advise them and be the first people with whom they brainstorm ideas.

The problem is that some politicians perceive every piece of advice as a constraint. For such clients, you can build an enormous communications system around them, but at best that system will only mitigate the damage for a certain period of time. It will not create a good political product.

Finally, throughout my career I have met and worked with many international consultants. From those experiences, I have concluded that there are two types. The first are those who are good at recognising politicians who are afraid of genuine advice and simply validate their decisions at every level. Then there is the second group, much smaller and rarer: those who challenge the client, push back and become involved in decisions from their very inception.

This is difficult and demanding, and it often leads to losing clients.

But it is the right thing to do.

Nikola Spasov is a communications strategist, researcher and political consultant.