Macedonian Parties Take Campaign to Facebook

Although Macedonia's general election campaign does not start officially until mid-May, the political battle is already in full swing on social networking sites.

All major political players, including the Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, and the head of the opposition Social Democrats, Branko Crvenkovski, have increasingly active profiles and fan sites on Facebook. Crvenkovski recently answered questions from internet users through live video feed.

Gruevski's Facebook profile currently has over 33,000 supporters, several thousand more than Crvenkovski. 

Both pages are complemented with speeches and updates on the politicians’ recent activities.

Although the parties are reluctant to disclose whether they have hired professional PR agencies to run their internet promotion strategies, spokespersons from both sides freely admit they take the cyper-campaign very seriously.

A survey conducted by the Skopje-based Metamorphosis Foundation, after Macedonia's 2009 presidential elections, showed that the mood of the Macedonian Facebook users had closely reflected the level of support that the candidates enjoyed in the vote.

The internet battle in the ethnic Albanian political camp is also fierce. Ali Ahmeti, head of the junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, has most supporters on Facebook. His page has some 6,000 fans.

But Rufi Osmani, head of the recently formed ethnic Albanian opposition party, National Democratic Rebirth, is also doing well. He comes second on the site with almost 5,000 supporters.

Communication sciences expert Darko Buldioski told Balkan Insight that the internet was now part of everyday political life in Macedonia, and parties increasingly acknowledged its potential as a cheap means of communicating with potential voters.

There are currently over 700,000 Facebook accounts in Macedonia, which has about 2.1 million people. This is one-third of the population. Buldioski described Facebook as “a virtual city” that no party could afford to ignore.