Observers Expect Negative Campaign In Macedonia

The election campaign, which lasts for 20 days, officially kicked off on Monday.

“Judging by what we have seen thus far, the campaign will obviously be dirty and full of negative energy directed at smearing political opponents,” says Klime Babunski, communications professor at the Skopje-based Institute of Sociological, Political and Juridical Research.

Babunski argues that such smear campaigns filled with political monologues instead of a constructive contest of ideas will serve only to draw together the parties' regular voters. He says that those who have chosen to stay home will not be spurred by the campaign to head to the polls.

Nikola Spasov, a researcher from the local agency Rating, which conducts regular surveys of the Macedonian electorate, agrees that the forthcoming campaign will likely be negative.

“It is staggering to see how many negative [political] advertisements appeared in media and newspapers in the past few weeks,” he said for the local Dnevnik daily, adding that this was “just a warm up before the official campaign starts”.

Only time will tell whether the negative campaigning will indeed have an impact on Macedonia's traditionally high number of undecided voters.

Opinion polls done before elections usually show large number of Macedonian voters who say they don't know yet for whom they'll vote. The number of undecided voters varies from some 30 to 40 per cent of respondents in opinion polls.

But Babunski explains that most of these people have actually decided their favorites even before the campaign starts but have simply decided to be cautious and not reveal their choice.

“It is very hard to believe that so many people have not formed their opinions on the biggest political issues in the country,” Babunski says.

Spasov agrees that most of the people have already made up their mind and that only a small percentage of voters are actually influenced by the election campaign.

Past experience has shown that campaigns in general can only “increase the election turn out” and “tighten the party’s traditional electorate” but “do not change the party ratings drastically”, he said.

The main political battle at the June 5 elections is between the centre-right VMRO DPMNE of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and the opposition Social Democrats, led by Branko Crvenkovski.

Recent opinion polls indicate that the ruling party, which has been in power since 2006, is likely to triumph in the June poll.

In an effort to dampen the friction between political opponents, 30 political leaders, including top leaders, signed a code for fair and democratic electoral conduct last week.