Political parties in Montenegro are not yet aware of the advantages provided by social networks, as evidenced by the last presidential election, when the hashtag #izboriCG generated 24 impressions in just 3.224.435 hours on election day. with 1.449 tweets!
That evening, Twitter enabled Vuk Gojnić to follow the elections as if he were at home, even though he was out of the country.
"I don't need any TV. I'm following the #elections of CG from Bonn in the U-Bahn like in front of a building, the only thing I don't know is how I'm going to watch the fireworks".
The first results were published on Twitter, a lively (and above all healthy) discussion took place after both presidential candidates, Miodrag Lekić and Filip Vujanović, announced their victories.
"Only Chuck Norris knows who the president of Montenegro is", "Let's ask the late Mileva (@PokojnaMileva) to announce the results as they voted from the other world" "@mmjooo and I popped the popcorn and with two liters of Coke we are looking for live betting for this... what's the name #izboriCG"... was tweeted that evening.
And there were also tweets about the state of the country and the results according to which both candidates won. ..
"It is not true that we all won. With this spectacle tonight, we all lost. The holiday of democracy" (@MilicaCDT), "Gentlemen #DPS and #DF, if you raise tensions and the people go to war for your chair, the country will not accept your bones" (@rain_wind_storm), "The common feature of those polled is what they expect from the #CG elections: lethargy, unanimity, indifference. It's really wonderful to be in this country" (@cubismomn), "We're All Losers Looks" (@Kornjacin_Vrac), "After tonight, I'm going to live in America and clean the streets, just so I don't see these unfortunates", "The only SAD truth is that Montenegro is a deeply divided country on every possible level"... these are just some of the many tweets that were published during the election night.
Tweeting continued on Monday, when the first early results were announced and the State Election Commission (SEC) announced that the new (old) president of Montenegro is Filip Vujanović.
"And no change," she tweeted @kozelica.
Expectations were also announced...
"I expect the president to continue improving the standard of living, free education, now I can buy an apartment, a car, travel" (@TheRealCMash) ...
Elections were not discussed on Twitter only during election day and night. Those who followed the hashtags #izboriCG #politika #politikaCG all days of the pre-election campaign could read media announcements, as well as live Twitter discussions about the elections for the new president of Montenegro. Only those who participated in the elections were absent from those discussions and announcements.
"At the very least, they had to follow what was happening on this powerful communication channel and modern medium," says the business coach Srdjan Vukcevic.
Tweets on the subject of #electionsCG achieved excellent visibility
In his opinion, during the elections, the candidates failed to use social networks in the right way. Instead, their public relations teams should have been actively involved in the discussions during the campaign.
"The most interesting and inventive content in this campaign was not offered from the official addresses of the parties, but from internet activists. The parties could learn from them, and plan some future campaigns with those who spend a good part of their time living a virtual life", believes Koprivica from the CDT.
The executive director of the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) also notes this. Dragan Koprivica.
"I'm glad that the parties are slowly starting to understand that the Internet is not used to put up a banner, and we can see the first attempts to use social networks in the campaign. However, abroad there is always not too much of a strategic approach, there is a lack of creativity and the campaign is usually one-way," he says. .
Precisely because of this lack of strategic approach, according to him, the reach of the candidates' online campaigns, when comparing the number of users of their content and the percentage of the population that is active on social networks, was not great.
Koprivica added that the party's official campaigns were predominantly focused on promotional content.
"There was very little content intended for citizens," he says.
Koprivica assesses that, when it comes to online campaigns. The Democratic Front (DF) was somewhat more successful than the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), mainly due to the fact that high officials of that coalition are relatively active and influential on social networks, primarily Facebook.
"Nevertheless, the most interesting and inventive content in this campaign was not offered from the official addresses of the parties, but from internet activists. The parties could learn from them, and plan some future campaigns with those who spend a good part of their time living a virtual life," Koprivica believes.
Communication specialist Radoje Cerović campaigns of both candidates are classic.
"They were classic and at times old-fashioned both in conception and strategy, as well as in terms of applied means of communication. Once again, it has been shown that political subjects are very little sensitive to the birth of something that is sometimes called Democracy 2.0, that is, a new type of interaction with the electorate such as and the mobilization of that body. Examples of successful campaigns from Barack Obama to the Italian political phenomenon Bepa Grilja, in Montenegro are met with classic reactions of the type "It hasn't taken off in our country yet", says Cerović.
And the resistance to these strategies, he added, does not come only from a poor understanding of social media by marketing experts and spin doctors in Montenegro.
"Many of them are very familiar with the new possibilities. There is often resistance in political structures, which would be forced to a completely different conception of politics and political communication, focused on micro-targets and in constant communication with citizens. This is a big turn and requires a serious change in strategy , as well as in the tactics of political communication. We are facing the birth of a new, web-oriented democracy. We can find both good and bad sides in it, but I am deeply convinced that the future belongs to those political subjects who recognize its possibilities and understand its logic," he says Cerovic.
"We are facing the birth of a new, web-oriented democracy. We can find both good and bad sides in it, but I am deeply convinced that the future belongs to those political subjects who recognize its possibilities and understand its logic", says communication specialist Radoje Cerović.Otvoreneldeje.me
Montenegrin Twitter users are a young community, but they have already outgrown the slow Government and politicians. The interlocutors of "Vijesti" assess that they actually "lit up" the election night.
"The only real value of the election night is the behavior of the #team on Twitter... 80 percent of smart and mature people. All the best," Dragan Koprivica from CDT praised Twitter users that evening.
Most of the members of the Twitter community, he said, first of all, behaved very maturely and responsibly.
"Those representatives of the candidates who raised tensions and sent unmeasured messages to the citizens did not fare well. It was shown that the awareness of Twitter is above all civil, not political. But that does not mean that there were not opposing opinions and argumentative discussions. When you add to all that and that, always present, dose of humor, I can say that the election night on #izboricg was more interesting than the dozen TV stations and portals that I followed," says Koprivica.
Even the popular Nebojša Babović did not spare words of praise @Brodonacelnik, who filed a petition on the petition in November, when he asked the government to reduce the number of applicants for electronic petitions from 6.000 to 500.
Filed a petition about the petition: The 6.000 figure disqualifies many >>>
"A big greeting to Montenegrin Twitterers tonight. Witty, reasonable and informative. Thank you all, I'm off to celebrate in bed"...
Tweets were also moved to TV screens
The term second screen (on Twitter #secondscreen) is used to describe the fact that social media have become a parallel system of information and that more and more people, in addition to TV programs, achieve constant and parallel communication through social web systems. That communication, Cerović explains, takes place on the same topic as the topic of the ongoing TV program.
"On Election Night at ETCG, we followed Twitter and, as guests in the studio, received information through that channel in real time. It was advised that the Twitter hashtag #rtcg and #izbornanoc as well as #izboriCG went directly to the program with, of course, the mandatory control of the appropriateness of comments in accordance with the Law on Media. This would make the Secondscreen culture official and massively divert the attention of Montenegrin citizens from the already capillary-expanded Facebook to Twitter and its possibilities," says Cerović.
Electoral silence loses its meaning
The presidential, as well as the parliamentary elections that were held in October 2012, raised the question of whether election silence makes sense in the age of the Internet.
The Institute of Electoral Silence is used in a certain number of democratic states, because it is believed that in this way voters are protected from an aggressive pre-election campaign, and that they should be given the opportunity, at least for a short time before the elections, to make the final decision without the pressure and influence of spins and political marketing.
Election silence generally means the suspension of campaigning through the media and public gatherings and/or the ban on publishing the results of public opinion polls in the period before election day, explains Koprivica from the CDT. On the other hand, he added, a part of democratic states consider the introduction of election silence as a violation of the right to freedom of expression.
"It seems to me that with the shift of the campaign from traditional media to the Internet, the institution of electoral silence has lost its meaning. I have never before considered that electoral silence in Montenegro fulfills its function, because it does not stop the field activities of the parties, which have been the most intense in the last few days , and in such a small society with well-organized parties, the media is not necessary to reach the largest number of voters. When we add to that social networks, blogs, and alternative portals that citizens read, but the institutions do not check in relation to respect for silence, considering the abolition of electoral silence makes sense".
The SEC doesn't have to bother, no one believes them anyway
A humorous Serbian website also wrote about the phenomenon of the victory of both presidential candidates in the Montenegrin elections News.net.
"Candidates for the president of Montenegro, Filip Vujanović and Miodrag Lekić, after both declared their election victory, decided to solve this political crisis by going from voter to voter together and asking them who they voted for," says News.
Lekić and Vujanović together to the voters, Photo: Savo Prelević
In the text, Lekić and Vujanović simultaneously asked the voter for whom he voted, so if the voter says that he gave his trust to Vujanović, then Lekić, under the supervision of Vujanović, writes a dash for Vujanović in a separate notebook. And if the voter says that he supported Lekić, then Vujanović, under the supervision of Lekić, writes a dash for Lekić in the same notebook. The notebook is then closed and opened again only when the next voter is reached.
Njuz.net did not fail to joke with the SEC, which was repeatedly called out on Twitter, because it did not advertise, even to announce when it would address the public.
"Vujanović and Lekić told the State Election Commission that it does not have to bother and count the votes again because it as an institution has lost the trust of both the two and the citizens of Montenegro," Njuz.net writes.
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