Candidates for the president of Montenegro generally do not communicate with the audience that follows them on social networks, and they mostly address citizens by sending general messages. Thus, none of the candidates answered the direct question of the journalist on the networks whether, as president, they would sign the law allowing same-sex partners to adopt children.
All presidential candidates are present on the social network Facebook, and the only one Jovan Radulović, the truth has long been in the role of someone with the intention of entertaining followers, and on TikTok.
Candidates' messages on Facebook and Instagram, with the exception of Radulović, are sponsored, and so far the most money has been invested in promotion for these purposes. Andrije Mandić, candidate of the Coalition for the Future of Montenegro.
In addition to one of the leaders of the Democratic Front (DF), as previously confirmed by the State Election Commission (SEC), there are six other candidates in the race for president, and for each of them, social networks are being used for promotion.
Thus, the current president will be in the race for the first man of the state Milo Djukanovic, leader and candidate of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), Jakov Milatovic as a candidate of the Europe Now Movement, Jovan Radulović as an independent candidate, Goran Danilović, candidate of the United Montenegro, leader of the Democrats Aleksa Becic and the only woman, Draginja Vuksanović Stanković, SDP candidate. The elections will be held on March 19,
A little from my side, a little from the party's side
In Montenegro, there is no legal framework that explicitly regulates online media and social networks, but as of August 2020, political subjects in the country are obliged to comply with Facebook's rules on political advertising. According to those rules, the authors of political ads are obliged to identify themselves. Thus, in August 2022, political parties had to submit data on the authorized advertiser or author of paid content, so the advertiser database (Ad Library) now provides insight into how much money is allocated for promotion on Facebook and Instagram for an individual candidate. Data is not available only for Jovan Radulović, whose Facebook page is registered in the categories "personal blog" and "sport and fitness...".
According to data from Facebook's ad database, candidates advertise from their own pages, from the party's pages, or a combination of them.
Mandić and Đukanović are advertised only on the candidate page. From the page of Andrije Mandić, in the period from February 6 to March 7, the most was spent on Facebook and Instagram ads - about 4.000 euros.
In the same period, 3,04 thousand euros were paid from Đukanović's website.
Neither the DF, of which Mandić is one of the leaders, nor the DPS, in the observed period, paid for the advertising of presidential candidates from the party pages.
No payment was made for ads on Facebook and Instagram last month even from Goran Danilović's page, but United Montenegro, whose candidate Danilović is, spent 663 euros on sponsoring the posts.
For the candidates - Bečić, Milatović and Vuksanović Stanković, ads are paid from both personal and party pages.
67 euros were paid for the campaign from Aleksa Bečić's page, but that amount is much higher when it comes to sponsoring posts via the party's Facebook page. According to Facebook's advertiser database, the Democrats spent 6 thousand euros for that purpose from February 7 to March 3,04.
The Europe now movement paid a little over 1.000 euros in total for the campaign of Jakov Milatović. Of that, 762 from the party's page, and 272 from the candidate's page.
For the promotion of Draginja Vuksanović Stanković on Facebook and Instagram, as Ad Library shows, from February 6 to March 7, 668 euros were paid, of which 126 from the SDP page, and 524 from her page.
The same tool shows that Jovan Radulović, since the creation of the Facebook page in July 2020, has not paid for advertising on that network.
Đukanović is promoting himself from the position of president
For the purposes of the campaign of candidate Milo Đukanović, DPS did not create new channels for promotion, but all messages communicate from the platform of the current president, with the keywords #NegoKo.
Thus, in the campaign, the official website www.predsjednik.me is still communicated, and messages are sent to voters from the president's profiles on social networks - from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the YouTube video platform.
On Facebook, the @predsjednikcg account has around 86.000 followers, and according to analysis from the Hootsuite platform, in the period from February 8 to March 8, an average of three messages are published on that account per day. During that month, the most video content was published on Đukanović's Facebook page - 49, followed by albums, of which 29 were published. On the same page, during that period, 19 messages in the form of photographs were also published. A total of 202 comments were left on that content, and no response from the page.
The Twitter account of the current president (predsjednik_cg) has been active since May 2017. In almost six years, about 1.400 tweets were published. The account has a little over 28 thousand followers, and only 108 users follow it. No interaction with citizens was recorded here either.
Đukanović also has an account on Instagram, but from that network, during this campaign, he communicates with citizens and the public from the position of the president, not a candidate. The Instagram account predjejdek_cg has about 35.700 followers, and it follows 86 other accounts. Over the past five years, 2.653 posts have been posted on the current president's Instagram.
Đukanović, as president and candidate for president, also communicates via YouTube, where he has around 8.500 subscribers.
A party, not an individual
Presidential candidate Aleksa Becic in the campaign on Facebook and the website, which has been the case since the formation of the party, he does not separate his name from Democratic Montenegro, the party of which he is the leader. Although he has a special page on Facebook, according to investments in sponsored posts, in the campaign for the presidential elections, communication is mainly from the page of the party @demokratskacrnagora.
The page has 84 thousand followers, in the last month on average one message is posted from it, of which the most posts are in the form of photos - 31, while video posts are much less - four. During the observed period, 48 comments were left on the published content.
Since October 2020, Bečić has also been present on Twitter (BecicAleksa), where he has around 14 thousand followers, while he only follows 73 other accounts. Since opening the account, the Democratic presidential candidate has posted just over 2.000 tweets. The analysis shows that Bečić, like Đukanović, does not respond to the comments of others...
Messages from the account through which Bečić is presented are mainly communicated with the keywords #ČastiMi.
On average, Facebook posts are sponsored with amounts up to 100 euros. For the publication "Letter from Alekse Bečić. Look at what it says", which was active for two days, from March 8 to 10, according to the Facebook ad database, for the set parameters and target group, the estimated amount to be paid is between 500 and 599 euros.
Sometimes they even hear what the citizens are saying
The presidential candidate of the Europe Now Movement has some communication with users on Twitter. Thus, from the JakovMilatovic account, which was opened in December 2020, out of 100 analyzed posts, he had six responses to comments. Milatović is followed on Twitter by 11,1 thousand users, he follows 270 accounts, and in a little more than two years since he has been present on that network, he has published around 1.300 tweets.
Milatović is also present on Instagram, and his account jakov_milatovic with about 450 posts has about 11,8 thousand followers. He follows only 74 users on the same network.
Milatović also addresses voters on Facebook, from the page @jakovmilatovices, which has around 11,860 followers. However, he did not update the information that he is participating in the presidential elections, but continues to present himself on Facebook as a candidate for mayor of Podgorica in the local elections.
On Milatović's Facebook page, mostly multimedia, predominantly photos, is published. 504 comments were left on this content in the last month, according to data from the Hootsuite platform.
This is also the largest number of comments posted on the content of the presidential candidates in the observed period.
When they do that, the authors of Jakov Milatović's page sponsor their posts with amounts of up to 100 euros. From the page of the Movement Europe now, however, the amounts invested in sponsoring content related to the promotion of their presidential candidate are two to three times higher. Messages are communicated with the keywords #Succeed, #JakovZaPresdsednika...
Like Bečić, Milatović also does not have his own website as a presidential candidate, but instead lists the party's website - www.evropasad.com.
Dedicated website, Viber and Telegram groups
The Facebook page of Andrija Mandić as a candidate for the President of Montenegro (MandicPredsjednik) was created in mid-February and is followed by about 1,4 thousand users. According to data from the Hootsuite platform, during the last month, an average of two messages were published per day on the page. According to the same data, about twenty comments were left on the content. 27 photos and 18 video messages were published. Publications are sponsored with amounts up to 100 euros.
On Instagram, Mandić also has a verified account (andrijamandicdf), which is followed by 4,7 thousand users. There are about 130 posts on the account. Mandić also has Twitter (AndrijaMandicDF), the account was created in November 2020, since which around 280 tweets have been published. The candidate of the "Coalition for a Better Future of Montenegro" has almost 6.000 followers on Twitter. Nor does Mandić on that network, according to data from the foller.me platform, respond to tweeters' comments.
Mandić is also present on YouTube, where his channel has about 280 subscribers.
His posts are followed by the keywords #ZaAndrija.
Along with Draginja Vuksanović Stanković, Mandić is the only presidential candidate who has a website created specifically for the needs of the campaign and the elections on March 19 (www.andrijamandic.com).
On the website www.mojapredsjednica.me, along with the biography of the SDP candidate, there is also a form for joining that party. Vuksanović Stanković, as stated on the website, also has channels on Viber and Telegram.
The Facebook page of the SDP candidate (president of change) is followed by 29 thousand users, and according to the statistics of the Hootsuite platform, during the last month, three messages are published there per day. About 260 comments were posted on the content, which mainly consists of photos, during the last month.
According to the ad database, no more than 100 euros per publication is spent on sponsorship.
Messages are communicated with the keywords #DraginjaSrcem.
Since February 2021, Vuksanović Stanković also uses Twitter (Draginja07), where he has almost 13 thousand followers. Like her fellow politicians, foller.me shows, she doesn't respond to tweeters' comments either.
On Instagram, Vuksanović Stanković also has a large number of followers - 12,4 thousand, and she herself follows over 2.400 accounts. The only woman among the candidates for president of Montenegro has an open YouTube channel, but all the content is from 2018, when she also ran.
Danilović - modestly, Radulović between jokes and campaigns
Goran Danilović, the candidate of the United Montenegro, is the most modest in his presentation on social networks. On Facebook, his page has 7,9 thousand followers, and the generic name of the page has not been changed, so it still shows the text "profile.php?id=..." and a series of numbers in the web address, which makes it difficult to remember the name.
Danilović uses that page for campaign communication, but the campaign is also communicated from the page of the party whose candidate he is. United has about 11,1 followers on Facebook.
Danilović also has an account on Twitter, where he has been present since 2019. The account is followed by 3.140 users, and it follows 217 Twitter accounts. In almost three years, Danilović published about 300 tweets on that network.
Jovan Radulović, an independent candidate, did not create special accounts for the purposes of the campaign, but communicates with those from whom he has published content for the last two years with the intention of entertaining his followers.
He publishes the content on Facebook, where he has over 140,5 thousand followers. The page was created in July 2020.
According to data from the Hootsuite platform, during the last month, an average of three messages were published on the page per day. Radulović mainly publishes video content. Thus, in the last month, 90 video messages and only five photo posts were published. 473 comments were left on the published content.
On Instagram, his account jodziir, where Radulović, as he stated, is the ambassador of a betting company, he has a base of 244 thousand followers. Sam follows 4.310 users, and has posted about 730 posts on Instagram so far. Radulović is the only one among the presidential candidates to use TikTok. The account @jokikakok has over 81 thousand followers...
884.549 euros were allocated from the budget to finance part of the expenses of the election campaign of the candidate for the election of the President of Montenegro.
Regulate the rules of internet campaigns
After the parliamentary elections in August 2020, the Monitoring Center (CEMI) published the report "Reshaping the election campaign using social media in Montenegro". With the analysis of a large number of accounts, official and unofficial, they indicated that online political advertising and campaigning had a far greater reach and scope than traditional ways of campaigning.
They said then that legislators should therefore consider the regulation of campaigns on the Internet, "as a key aspect not only for improving the integrity of the electoral process, but also for protecting the right of voters to receive information and make a free choice."
They also pointed out that during the election period "it is of crucial importance to conduct official state orders with the highest level of professionalism and political neutrality".
"Transparency and accountability in the management of official state accounts and websites during elections could increase public confidence in the electoral process," they stated in the analysis.
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