Thirty Years Of Political Campaigning In Central And Eastern Europe 3030276929, 9783030276928, 3030276937, 9783030276935

Table of contents :
Preface......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 10
Praise for Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe......Page 12
Contents......Page 13
Notes on Contributors......Page 17
List of Tables......Page 25
Chapter 1: A Brief Historical Overview of Political Campaigning: Theories, Concepts, and Approaches......Page 26
Campaigning Throughout the Twentieth Century: A Historical Overview......Page 28
Professionalisation......Page 35
The Personalisation of Politics......Page 37
References......Page 40
Part I: Baltic States......Page 43
Chapter 2: Characteristics of the Baltic States......Page 44
References......Page 47
Country Overview......Page 49
Legal Framework......Page 51
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 52
Recent Trends......Page 56
Conclusion......Page 58
References......Page 68
Country Overview......Page 71
Legal Framework......Page 73
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 75
Recent Trends......Page 78
Conclusion......Page 79
References......Page 84
Country Overview......Page 87
Legal Framework......Page 89
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 91
Recent Trends......Page 94
Conclusion......Page 97
References......Page 103
Chapter 6: Summary for the Baltic States......Page 105
Part II: Central Europe......Page 108
Chapter 7: Characteristics of Central Europe......Page 109
References......Page 114
Country Overview......Page 116
Legal Framework......Page 117
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 119
Recent Trends......Page 124
Conclusion......Page 126
References......Page 132
Country Overview......Page 133
Legal Framework......Page 134
A Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 135
Strategy......Page 136
Positioning......Page 137
Messages......Page 138
Candidates......Page 139
Media and Other Channels......Page 140
The Mainstreaming of Relationship Marketing: National Consultations......Page 141
The Revival of Premodern Tools: Billboards, Petitions, Signature Gatherings......Page 142
Conclusion......Page 143
References......Page 148
Country Overview......Page 149
Legal Framework......Page 150
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 151
Critical Elections in 2005......Page 152
2007 Parliamentary Campaign......Page 153
In the Shadow of an Plane Crash: Campaigns in 2010 and 2011......Page 154
Recent Trends......Page 155
Conclusion......Page 157
References......Page 165
Country Overview......Page 167
Legal Framework......Page 169
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 170
Recent Trends......Page 176
Conclusion......Page 178
References......Page 183
Chapter 12: Summary for Central Europe......Page 184
Part III: The Balkans......Page 187
Chapter 13: Characteristics of the Balkans......Page 188
References......Page 192
Country Overview......Page 193
Legal Framework......Page 194
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 196
Virtual Campaigning: Impact on Political Behaviour......Page 199
International Expertise in Political Campaigns......Page 200
Electronic Media, Digital Campaigning, and Elections......Page 201
Recent Trends......Page 203
Conclusion......Page 204
References......Page 211
Country Overview......Page 212
Legal Framework......Page 214
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 217
Recent Trends......Page 220
Conclusion......Page 222
References......Page 230
Country Overview......Page 231
Legal Framework......Page 232
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 234
Recent Trends......Page 239
Conclusion......Page 241
References......Page 247
Country Overview......Page 248
Parliamentary Elections: 1990 to 2016......Page 249
Legal Framework......Page 250
Personalisation and Celebrity Politics......Page 252
Professionalisation, Advertising, and the Rise of Digital Campaigning......Page 254
Conclusion......Page 256
References......Page 263
Country Overview......Page 266
Legal Framework......Page 268
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 269
Enthusiasm and Fear......Page 270
Armed Ethnic Conflict in 2001......Page 271
Bucharest NATO Summit and Its Consequences......Page 272
Populism......Page 273
Recent Trends......Page 275
Conclusion......Page 277
References......Page 294
Country Overview......Page 295
Elections......Page 297
Campaigns......Page 299
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 300
Media Coverage of Electoral Campaigning—Finalists’ Televised Debates After 1996......Page 301
Contribution of New Technologies......Page 302
Conclusion......Page 303
References......Page 318
Country Overview......Page 319
Legal Framework......Page 321
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 322
Recent Trends......Page 326
Conclusion......Page 327
References......Page 332
Country Overview......Page 335
Legal Framework......Page 337
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 338
Recent Trends......Page 342
Conclusion......Page 344
References......Page 351
Chapter 22: Summary for the Balkans......Page 353
Part IV: Eastern Europe......Page 357
Chapter 23: Characteristics of Eastern Europe......Page 358
References......Page 362
Country Overview......Page 364
Legal Framework......Page 365
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 367
Recent Trends......Page 373
Conclusion......Page 374
References......Page 379
Country Overview......Page 381
Legal Framework......Page 382
Historical Overview of Campaigns......Page 383
Recent Trends......Page 390
Conclusion......Page 392
References......Page 396
Country Overview......Page 398
The Party System in Russia......Page 400
Legal Framework......Page 402
Use of Media in Party Campaigns......Page 403
Professionalisation of Party Campaigns......Page 406
Party Campaign Strategies......Page 407
Recent Trends......Page 408
Conclusion......Page 409
References......Page 414
Chapter 27: Summary for Eastern Europe......Page 416
Part V: Conclusion......Page 420
Chapter 28: Conclusion......Page 421
Index......Page 426

Citation preview

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING AND COMMUNICATION

Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe Edited by  Otto Eibl · Miloš Gregor

Political Campaigning and Communication Series Editor Darren G. Lilleker Bournemouth University Bournemouth, UK

The series explores themes relating to how political organisations promote themselves and how citizens interpret and respond to their tactics. Politics is here defined broadly as any activities designed to have an impact on public policy. The scope of the series thus covers election campaigns, as well as pressure group campaigns, lobbying, and campaigns instigated by social and citizen movements. Research included in the series might focus on the latest strategies and tactics within political marketing and campaigning, covering topics such as the strategic use of legacy, digital and social media, the use of big data and analytics for targeting citizens, and the use of manipulative tactics and disinformation. Furthermore, as campaigns are an important interface between the institutions of power and citizens, they present opportunities to examine their impact in engaging, involving and mobilizing citizens. Areas of focus might include attitudes and voting behavior, political polarization and the campaign environment, public discourse around campaigns, and the psychologies underpinning civil society and protest movements. Works may take a narrow or broad perspective. Single-nation case studies of one specific campaign and comparative cross-national or temporal studies are equally welcome. The series also welcomes themed edited collections which explore a central set of research questions. For an informal discussion for a book in the series, please contact the series editor Darren Lilleker ([email protected]), or Anne Birchley-­Brun ([email protected]). More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14546

Otto Eibl  •  Miloš Gregor Editors

Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe

Editors Otto Eibl Department of Political Science Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

Miloš Gregor Department of Political Science Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

ISSN 2662-589X     ISSN 2662-5903 (electronic) Political Campaigning and Communication ISBN 978-3-030-27692-8    ISBN 978-3-030-27693-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Brian Harris / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

After the collapse of the communist regimes in particular countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), new political parties were founded, renewed, or reformed. Whole political systems and societies underwent massive change in terms of political culture and political practice. In the field of communication, rather blatant, often brutal, and one-sided propaganda had been present in the region for decades and none of the included countries had experienced political marketing as it was developing in the Western democracies. However, after the fall of the regimes, this propaganda was substituted for a more or less deliberative dialogue between voters and newly formed political parties. This change could be described as a shift from propaganda to political marketing, from manipulation to persuasion. Most of the political parties had to face a difficult situation. On the one hand, they did not have any experience with free and deliberative communication with voters. On the other hand, the voters were often suspicious of parties and their communication as they still had partisan propaganda in their minds and memories. So, the political parties had (in the field of political communication and campaigning) only a couple scenarios they could follow. They could do their best and execute campaigns without sufficient experience in free elections or engage political agencies and consultants from abroad. This would be a decisive moment which would affect the coming development of campaigning in the country. Some scholars in this region started studying how political parties communicate with their target groups, how they carry out their campaigns, what marketing tools they use, and what issues they talk about. However, v

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the focus of these particular studies has been too narrow, dealing mainly with particular elections and issues. At present, there has not been a book which could offer a comprehensive study of the evolution of political marketing and the communication tools and techniques used in election campaigns in countries of the former Communist Bloc. In comparison with what we know about campaigns in Western democracies, this topic is heavily understudied and surprisingly omitted. The main aim of this book is to fill this gap and offer a comprehensive comparative study of how politics is communicated during elections across Central and Eastern Europe, in countries which turned from their communist past onto a democratic path at end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. This breaking point is reflected in the name of this publication—it has been thirty years since the regimes changed, and we believe this provides us the unique opportunity to introduce these developments in the field of political campaigning. The book starts with an introductory chapter where we focus on societal changes and media developments which occurred during the twentieth century (mainly in Western democracies). We discuss the different nature of political communication in different timeframes and focus on the organisational and structural change of most of the partisan systems. After this chapter, the main part of the book follows: a series of country chapters. However, as we are limited by space, we focused (in most cases) on one type of election only. As the vast majority of discussed countries are parliamentary democracies, it only made sense to focus on the elections where the most is at stake. The only exception is countries with a semi-­ presidential regime, where the focus is, of course, on both types of elections: parliamentary and presidential. The book is divided into sections dedicated to the various regions of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE): Central European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia), the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia), the Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, and Serbia), and Eastern Europe (Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine). These sections are accompanied by a region-specific introduction and conclusion. Divided this way, the book follows the logic of various aspects these countries have in common (historically, politically, and so on), so we are able to compare their development to each other. Each case study covers the period starting with the first elections after regime change to the last election which

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took place in the country preceding the publication of this book (for example, from 1990 to 2017 in the case of the Czech Republic). All case studies also follow the same structure and logic. They begin with a brief country overview which covers the most decisive moments in a given country’s ‘modern’ history (for instance, the transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one, establishing new party and political systems, joining NATO/European Union, etc.) and the most important features of the political system regarding elections to the parliament (type of political system, election system, notes on stability of voter behaviour, etc.). After this part, a review of the most relevant rules and laws (especially related to campaigning, or at least to elections in general) is presented. After discussing the laws, the main part of every country chapter follows: a historical overview of campaigning in the country. This part of the chapters covers the development of political marketing tools (concerning the media mix), messages, and strategies implemented in campaigns, as well as the development of issues and their nature—what the decisive issues were in particular elections and how they were communicated. This section also marks the moment from which it becomes possible to talk about professionalisation of the campaigns and the tipping point by which a ‘marketing revolution’ appears in each country (for example, the 2006 parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic). The next section of the chapter points out the most recent trends in campaigning and discusses the biggest challenges each country faces in the field. Finally, the last part of the country chapter summarises the state of affairs and provides some thoughts about possible future development. Concluding the main part of the book, we offer a summary of the main campaigning moments in CEE and point out the biggest differences among the countries or regions. As you may have noticed from the list of countries above, not all post-communist countries from Europe are included. For example, some former Yugoslavian successors from the Balkans are missing because of their formation and independence years after the first wave at the turn of the 1980s. Finally, according to the aim of this book, which is to present readers with the characteristics of regional development in the practice of political marketing, we were not able to cover a fully detailed development in every single country. With our aim of covering eighteen countries, we were limited by the extent of one book. Therefore, general characteristics are what is mainly discussed in the case

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study chapters. However, we believe this publication will be a useful tool helping to understand what specifics appertain to the covered countries from a political marketing and communication point of view. Brno, Czech Republic Brno, Czech Republic 

Otto Eibl Miloš Gregor

Acknowledgments

Firstly, we would like to thank Darren Lilleker, the editor of the series, who showed a lot of enthusiasm about this project and who encouraged us to realise it. Thank you so much, Darren! Next, to all good people at Palgrave Macmillan who gave us the opportunity to publish this piece of work. We are glad Palgrave Macmillan is open to supporting projects such as ours and thus help scholars and readers all around the world understand how political communication and campaigns are shaped and executed in various states and political systems. Without their support, most of the information and knowledge on campaigning would be lost or only available at the local level. Thank you for your trust and belief in publication focusing on this topic in the Central and Eastern Europe region. In particular, we are grateful to Anne BirchleyBrun, our editor, for her advice, patience, and assistance. A big thank you goes naturally to all the contributors to this book. Thank you for being courageous enough to work with us, even though (at least some of you) did not know us in person. Thank you for your energy and hard work, the result is more than worth it! We hope you enjoyed the work on this exciting project as much as we did. Many thanks to our colleagues at the Department of Political Science and the International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University. In particular, special credit for their endless support of our research on political communication and marketing goes to Stanislav Balík, Vít Hloušek, and Lubomír Kopeček. Thanks to all our friends, colleagues and marketing practitioners who inspire us over and over again: Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Andrew Hughes, ix

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Dominic Wring, Robert Ormrod, Jamie Fisfis, Petra Vejvovodá, Anna Shavit, Barbora Petrová, Jaroslav Poláček, Eva Lebedová, Sigge Winther Nielsen. There are many of you and we are probably not able to name you all; however, we do appreciate your support and feedback. We must not forget to say a big thank you to Brad McGregor for his excellent proofreading and copy-editing services. And last but not least, we want to express a huge thanks to our immediate and extended families, especially for their continuous support, patience, understanding, and encouragement. Once again, thank you all. We couldn’t have done without you.

Praise for Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe “This ground-breaking book is the first major work to look comprehensively at the application and evolution of modern political marketing and campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe. Many see this geographic area as the heartland and boundary region of Mittel Europe, where democracy has been re-ignited, flourished, fostered and grown against a historic background of Soviet Russian occupation and the detritus of failed autocratic or nationalist fascist regimes. Well done Otto Eibl and Miloš Gregor for giving us insight into how democracy and political marketing work in these key states. Each country is looked at in depth and a narrative developed outlining the core issues and techniques adopted in modern political communication. In many ways it is a must buy and to be read book on how democracy and campaigning works in this vast area of modern Europe. Democracy and political campaigning is burning brightly in Prague, Tallinn, Warsaw and across the capitals, legislatures and media in this region and the authors have made sure the wider world understands how it works and why.” —Phil Harris, Westminster Professor of Marketing and Public Affairs, University of Chester, UK “Although there is a widely held view that campaigns matter, there has been surprisingly little research on political campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe. Eibl and Gregor’s volume provides fascinating and detailed coverage of campaigns in the region, highlighting not just the context of politics and the legal frameworks in 18 different countries, but how and why campaigning has evolved over time. The book is a valuable resource and deserves to be on the bookshelves of scholars of comparative and electoral politics as well of those studying the politics of the region.” —Tim Haughton, Reader in European Politics, University of Birmingham, UK

Contents

1 A Brief Historical Overview of Political Campaigning: Theories, Concepts, and Approaches  1 Otto Eibl and Miloš Gregor

Part I Baltic States  19 2 Characteristics of the Baltic States 21 Vít Hloušek 3 Estonia 27 Marju Lauristin and Sten Hansson 4 Latvia 49 Ieva Bērziņa 5 Lithuania 65 Ingrida Unikaitė-Jakuntavičienė 6 Summary for the Baltic States 83 Otto Eibl xiii

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Contents

Part II Central Europe  87 7 Characteristics of Central Europe 89 Lubomír Kopeček 8 Czech Republic 97 Miloš Gregor 9 Hungary115 Balazs Kiss and Gabriella Szabo 10 Poland131 Wojciech Cwalina and Milena Drzewiecka 11 Slovakia149 Jozef Zagrapan 12 Summary for Central Europe167 Miloš Gregor

Part III The Balkans 171 13 Characteristics of the Balkans173 Věra Stojarová 14 Albania179 Afrim Krasniqi 15 Bosnia and Herzegovina199 Adnan Huskić

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16 Bulgaria219 Ivanka Mavrodieva 17 Croatia237 Marijana Grbeša and Berto Šalaj 18 North Macedonia255 Mirjana Maleska 19 Romania285 Adriana Ștef ănel, Silvia Branea, and Ruxandra Boicu 20 Slovenia309 Alenka Krašovec and Tomaž Deželan 21 Serbia325 Siniša Atlagić and Dušan Vučićević 22 Summary for the Balkans343 Miloš Gregor

Part IV Eastern Europe 347 23 Characteristics of Eastern Europe349 Jan Holzer 24 Moldova355 Igor Munteanu, Otto Eibl, and Miloš Gregor 25 Ukraine373 Larisa Doroshenko

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Contents

26 Russia391 John Ishiyama 27 Summary for Eastern Europe409 Otto Eibl

Part V Conclusion 413 28 Conclusion415 Otto Eibl and Miloš Gregor Index421

Notes on Contributors

Siniša Atlagić  is a professor of political marketing and political communication at University of Belgrade, Serbia. He has participated in many research projects on the media audience and electoral motivation. Since 2012, he is a member of the editorial board of several academic journals in Serbia and abroad. He is the author of three books and over 20 papers in academic journals on political propaganda, political marketing, and elections. Ieva Bērziņa  is a senior researcher at the Center for Security and Strategic Studies, National Defense Academy of Latvia. She obtained a PhD in political science (comparative politics) from the University of Latvia. In her doctoral thesis she studied globalization of political communication and foreign influence on political campaigns in Latvia. Her current research interests and academic publications cover issues of Russia’s influence on the foreign information environment, strategic communication, non-military aspects of national security, comprehensive national defence and patriotism. Before academic career, she gained practical experience in the field of marketing and communication. Ruxandra  Boicu  is an associate professor at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Bucharest, Romania, where she is Head of the MA on Media and Communication. She has authored The Televised Electoral Debate (2011) and other books and scholarly articles on political discourse, gender studies, verbal interaction in blogging, and diasporic media. xvii

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Notes on Contributors

Silvia Branea  is an associate professor at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Bucharest, Romania. Her research interests include political communication, gender studies, and globalization. She has participated in prestigious international projects and is the author/co-author of several books and articles, including “Romanian Journalists and Politics in 2004”. Wojciech Cwalina  is a professor in the Department of Social Psychology at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland. His research interests include political marketing, social psychology, media psychology and environmental marketing. He is a member of editorial board in Journal of Political Marketing and Social Psychological Bulletin. The author or co-author of five books, including A Cross-Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior (Haworth Press, 2007) and Political Marketing: Theoretical and Strategic Foundations (M.E. Sharpe, 2011), and numerous articles (e.g. in Media Psychology; Journal of Political Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Environmental Psychology) and book chapters. Tomaž Deželan  is an associate professor of political science and a research fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana. His main research topics are mostly related to youth and citizenship education, and electoral studies. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 peer reviewed scientific journal articles (Communication, Politics & Culture, Digital Journalism, Journal of European Public Policy), 25 chapters in edited volumes (IGI Global, Springer, etc.), 10 scientific monographs, and edited several edited volumes and journal special issues (ISI ranked) as well as several policy papers for international governmental organizations (OSCE, International IDEA). Larisa Doroshenko  holds her PhD in communication science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research is centered on the effects of new media on political campaigning, with a particular focus on social media engagement strategies of populist and far-right parties. Larisa’s dissertation explored use of digital media by political actors in Ukraine from the perspective of connective action theory. Her other projects include analysis of presidential debates in the US and France, as well as activities of the Russian Internet Research Agency during the US elections and military conflict in Donbass. Larisa’s research appears in Information,

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Communication & Society, International Journal of Communication, and New Media & Society. Milena  Drzewiecka is a PhD in psychology. She is a lecturer at Department of Marketing Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, teaching courses on psychology of political marketing and media psychology. Her research focuses on political leadership and image creation. She holds MSc in Psychology and M.A. in Journalism and Social Communication. She used to work as a political news reporter and parliamentary correspondent for Polish Public Television TVP. Since 2014 she has been working as a TV producer for international media, including German Public TV ZDF. She also serves leaders and media with her expertise on public communication and image psychology. Otto  Eibl  graduated in political science at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, where he is now an assistant professor, teaching courses about political communication and marketing. These areas are also the focal points of his research. At the International Institute for Political Science, he mainly studies political brands, their contents, and the processes by which the brands are created and maintained. He also researches the placement of political issues in political space and the communication and marketing strategies of political parties both in and beyond the lead-up to an election. Marijana  Grbeša is an associate professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb and a teaching fellow at Penn State Lehigh Valley University. She was the head of the School of Journalism and vice-­ dean for international relations at the Faculty of Political Science. She was a member of the negotiating team for Croatia’s Accession to the EU for Chap. 25 (Science and Research) and a representative of Croatia in the European Science Foundation. She regularly presents at the biggest international conferences in political science and media and communication. She has participated in several international research projects, either as a researcher or as a leader. She is the editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed Media Studies Journal published by the Faculty of Political Science (indexed in Scopus and WoS). She regularly writes media and political analyses for the biggest Croatian daily Večernji list. She is a recipient of a number of academic and professional grants and awards.

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Notes on Contributors

Miloš  Gregor graduated in political science at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University with a specialisation in electoral studies and political marketing, where he got a PhD as well. His main fields of research are political marketing, branding, and public relations in politics. As a researcher he was involved in the projects Campaign for the Election of the Czech Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies in 2010 and 2017 and Campaigns for the election of the Czech Parliament’s Senate and the Municipal Assemblies in 2010, all  implemented by the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies. He is now an assistant professor teaching courses on political communication and marketing as well as on propaganda, disinformation, and fake news. Sten  Hansson received his PhD from Lancaster University, United Kingdom, and is currently a researcher at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He is developing new frameworks for analysing government communication, conflicts, scandals, and blame games. His work has been published in Policy Sciences, Discourse & Society, Journal of Pragmatics, Critical Discourse Studies, Social Semiotics, Media, War & Conflict, Journal of Language and Politics, and the Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics. Sten also teaches courses and supervises research on political communication and discourse analysis. Vít Hloušek  is a professor of political science at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. His main focus is on contemporary European political history, political and party systems in European countries, and the Europeanization of political parties and party systems. He has published with Routledge, Edward Elgar Publishing, and Cambridge University Press. Jan Holzer  is a professor of political science at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. His research focuses on the political system of Russia and Eastern Europe, comparative area studies and transitology, and the theory of non-democratic and hybrid regimes. His research has been published in journals such as Studies of Transition States and Societies, World Political Science Review, and Representation. Adnan Huskić  is the president of Center for Election Studies and lecturer at Sarajevo School of Science and Technology. He focuses on elections and foreign policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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John Ishiyama  is a professor of political science at University of North Texas. His main focus is on comparative politics, area studies, and Russia. His book has been published by Routledge, Oxford University Press, and Sage, and his papers have been published in academic journals such as Science, Democratization, PS: Political Science & Politics, Social Science Quarterly, and Party Politics. Balazs Kiss  is a full time senior research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He also teaches at the Institute for Political Science at Law Faculty of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. His research has been carried out in the area of political communication, studies on emotions and popular culture. He has managed several research projects both in Hungary and abroad. Lubomír Kopeček  is a professor of political science at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. His main fields of research are Czech, Slovak, and Polish politics, and political parties and systems in European countries. His monography has been published by, among others, Palgrave, and his research article appeared in Europe-Asia Studies, East European Politics and Societies, and Communist and Post-Communist Studies. Afrim Krasniqi  is a member of the Albanian Institute for Political Studies (ISP), a researcher at the Institute of History (Academy of Albanological Studies), and a professor of political science. He studied at the University of Tirana (Albania), the University of Viadrina (Franfurt Oder, Germany) and he received his PhD in history and international relations at the University of Tirana. He is the author of a book on Albanian politics, political parties, elections, and civil society in Albania and South East European countries. Alenka Krašovec  is a professor of political science and a research fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana. Her main research topics are mostly related to political parties, electoral studies, and political participation. She has authored or co-authored more than 30 peer reviewed scientific journal articles (West European Politics, Electoral Studies, the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, the Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, Problems of Post-Communism), more than 40 chapters in edited volumes (published by prominent international publishing houses such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, etc.), and some scientific monographs.

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Notes on Contributors

Marju Lauristin  is a professor of social communication at University of Tartu, Estonia. She completed her PhD in journalism at Moscow University. Her research focus is on media, communication, and political perspectives of post-communist countries transition. She has published, among others, in European Journal of Communication, Journal of Baltic Studies, and Europe-Asia Studies. Mirjana Maleska  is a professor of political science (South-East European University-SEEU); a senior fellow researcher (Institute of Sociological and Political Research-ISPPI); and an accredited mentor at the Doctoral School of Political Science, University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius”, Skopje. She was a Fulbright scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public &  International Affairs and the founder and editor-in-chief of the international journal New Balkan Politics (www. newbalkanpolitics.org.mk). Her main fields of interest are political culture and the constitutional, political, party, and electoral systems of Balkan countries. Ivanka  Mavrodieva  is a lecturer on rhetoric, business communication, public relations, and academic writing at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohrisdki”, Bulgaria. She is the author of 12 books presenting scientific information in the new and traditional spheres of rhetoric, political rhetoric, virtual communication, and visual argumentation. She is a member of the Executive Board of the Rhetoric Society of Europe (http://eusorhet. eu/) and has been an editor-in-chief of the Rhetoric and Communications e-journal since 2011 (http://journal.rhetoric.bg/). Igor Munteanu  is teaching public policy and political administrative at the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova (ASEM) in Chisinau. He is also currently acting as an executive director of independent think-tank IDIS. From 2010 to 2015, Dr. Munteanu served as E.P. Ambassador of the Republic Moldova to the United States. His focus is on political analysis, regional development, communications, and analysis of political broadcasting commentators. Berto  Šalaj  is an associate professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb. He holds a PhD from the same faculty. He teaches courses in political socialisation and political education and democracy and civil society. He has published a number of books, chapters, and papers on political culture, social capital, democracy, civic education, and populism. He participates in a number of international projects on populism. He was

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a vice-dean for study programs at the Faculty of Political Science. He has been intensively involved in the activities of major Croatian NGOs. His most relevant books and reports include: Social Capital: Croatia in a Comparative Perspective (2007), Social Trust in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2009), and Croatia’s Captured Places: Case Studies on the Quality of Local Governance in Croatia (2017). Adriana  Ștefănel  is an associate professor at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Bucharest, Romania. She won a postdoctoral scholarship in 2015 from University of Bucharest Research Institute to conduct research on populism and political discourse. She is the author of When the Stranger Become the Enemy: The Image of the EastEuropeans in Western-Europe Political Discourse (2014). Věra  Stojarová  is an associate professor of political science at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. Her main research topics are mostly related to the Balkan states, political system transition, and nationalism. She focuses on regional security, conflict management in Latin America and the Balkans, and regional security questions. Her work has been published in, among others, Manchester University Press and Routledge. Gabriella Szabo  (PhD in Political Science) is a full time research fellow and Head of the Department of Political Behaviour at the Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her research interests lie in the area of political communication, studies on public sphere and media. She has published several peer reviewed articles in international journals (incl. International journal of Press/Politics; East European Politics & Societies; Problems of Post-Communism and International Journal of Communication) and book chapters in English. She is a lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Communication of Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Ingrida  Unikaitė-Jakuntavičienė  is an associate professor of political science at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) in Lithuania and is the chair of the Contemporary European Politics study programme committee at VMU.  Her main research interests are related to the analysis of political campaigns, electoral behaviour, political finance, political attitudes in Lithuania and Eastern Europe, and EU integration. Dušan  Vučićević is an assistant professor at University of Belgrade, Serbia. His main academic interest is in Serbian elections and campaigns.

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Jozef Zagrapan  is a postdoctoral associate at the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, with a current focus mainly on Slovakia in cross-national comparative research. His work has been published in, among others, Government Information Quarterly, European Journal of Communication, and Sociológia—Slovak Sociological Review.

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 8.1 Table 9.1 Table 10.1 Table 11.1 Table 14.1 Table 15.1 Table 16.1 Table 17.1 Table 18.1 Table 19.1 Table 20.1 Table 21.1 Table 24.1 Table 25.1 Table 26.1

Evolution of Campaigning in Estonia Evolution of Campaigning in Latvia Evolution of Campaigning in Lithuania Evolution of Campaigning in the Czech Republic Evolution of Campaigning in Hungary Evolution of Campaigning in Poland Evolution of Campaigning in Slovakia Evolution of Campaigning in Albania Evolution of Campaigning in Bosnia and Herzegovina Evolution of Campaigning in Bulgaria Evolution of Campaigning in Croatia Evolution of Campaigning in North Macedonia Evolution of Campaigning in Romania Evolution of Campaigning in Slovenia Evolution of Campaigning in Serbia Evolution of Campaigning in Moldova Evolution of Campaigning in Ukraine Evolution of Campaigning in Russia

37 59 77 108 126 141 161 192 211 231 247 268 295 319 335 366 386 403

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CHAPTER 1

A Brief Historical Overview of Political Campaigning: Theories, Concepts, and Approaches Otto Eibl and Miloš Gregor

Political marketing has become a seemingly crucial part of the strategy political leadership employs when attempting to determine, refine, and prioritise policy and goals. Generally, it can be understood in two ways. First, it is a philosophy, an attitude, and a perspective. Second, it is a set of activities used to implement that philosophy (Crompton and Lamb 1986). In Western terms, although seldom recognised by politicians, the problem of getting elected is essentially a marketing one. “Political parties must determine the scope and nature of their product and then find the most effective way of communicating its benefits to a target audience.” (Reid 1988, 34). As the political landscape of many countries is rapidly changing, the rising importance of effective political communications and marketing is visible in every democratic country around the world. Today, political marketing is understood as something far more than just presentation devices and advertising, it also relates to product management (Wring 1996). O. Eibl (*) • M. Gregor Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_1

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Furthermore, the process represents not only a set of techniques but also an approach to managing organisational relationships with their publics. Indeed, for some political parties, marketing has become the most important area in their political operations. For them, thinking about elections always begins with their potential voters, with those societal segments which would respond best to their party’s communication. Such a candidate does not have to have a firm ideology or grounded set of values, they must only offer what they think will be the most attractive for as many voters as necessary to achieve their goal (whether it is winning an election, overcoming an electoral threshold, or another goal). For other parties, political marketing offers a set of tools and approaches to design, test, and communicate their political product. Very often, these parties are built around a set of stable values or, perhaps, an ideology. The second approach also assumes the party comes to the public with its own issues—an important difference between these two types. We can also say that in the first case, the party is led by the market, and in the second, the party is leading the market, or at least stimulating the demands of voters. However, both approaches use advanced marketing and modern communication tools to communicate their messages so as to arouse emotions and persuade voters that they represent the best choice. In both cases, parties buy services from (external) political consultants, pollsters, analysts, and advertising experts from the business environment—sometimes even from abroad. In both cases, parties compete not only over substance but mainly over the attention of voters through the use of symbols, style, and emotions. The winning strategy is usually the product of a mixture of authenticity, credibility, and physical effort on the part of candidates to communicate personally with their (potential) voters. But what is ‘normal’ today was hardly imaginable a hundred years ago. During the last century, the relationship among voters and political parties underwent several changes, which also formed the way in which they communicate and operate on a daily basis. This is, of course, especially true when it comes to election communication. The aim of this introductory chapter then is to shed at least some light directly at this evolution of campaigning in modern democratic states and to locate the most important milestones which changed the relationship among political parties and (their) voters across the world in the twentieth century. After all, this will provide a better understanding of the developments in countries this publication is devoted to.

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Campaigning Throughout the Twentieth Century: A Historical Overview To fully understand the change, we have to look back to the end of the nineteenth (or the beginning of the twentieth) century when more and more people gained the right to vote and when modern mass political parties started emerging. Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan (1967) explain the origin of European parties as a consequence of two revolutions—national and industrial—which created a set of dominant social cleavages (centre vs. periphery, state vs. church, owner vs. worker, land vs. industry), dividing whole societies into different segments accordingly. The particular interests of these segments are often seen as antagonistic and colliding, and the strength of particular cleavages differs in every single country. Until the mid-twentieth century, the party systems in Western countries were stable, as was voting behaviour, and we saw only low levels of volatility between consequent elections. A similar social or class origin served as a necessary condition for creating more or less formal political structures which were capable of representing the interests of those segments in legislative bodies. In other words, voters were strongly affiliated with ‘their’ parties and had no reason to think about voting for other parties: For a member of a working-class family it was only natural to vote for socialist (and later communist) parties because they represented their interests best (see Lipset and Rokkan 1967, 50). Knowing this fact, Rokkan formulated his famous thesis about the freezing of party systems. At the core of this thesis is the fact that most of the political systems in Western Europe were almost the same as they were fifty years earlier. In such an environment, the role of communication was not to persuade voters about the right choice, but about securing constant or electoral mobilisation of them. To achieve this goal, every single party relied on publishing (multiple) newspapers and magazines which offered a strictly partisan look at current affairs. They also organised rallies and meetings where local party representatives had the opportunity to meet with their voters and offer to them an ‘acceptable’ interpretation of the world. This all means that citizens were involved in everyday political life, at least at the local level. In the time shortly before an election, a short and ad hoc central campaign was organised (see Norris 2000). Therefore, we can say that communication with voters was ‘spontaneous’, carried out on a daily basis, and cheap—at least in terms of the amount of money a party had to spend on maintaining a fruitful relationship with voters.

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On the other hand, it was crucial that parties had active local cells which were ready to organise the political life of a neighbourhood. As Norris stresses, campaigning in this era was local-active and labour intensive. Besides the partisan newspapers, typical communication tools and techniques were posters, leaflets, and face-to-face contact such as rallies, party meetings, and door-step canvassing (Norris 2000, 147). The main goal of political communication was rather to mobilise the electoral base of the parties rather than bring new voters and change their original party affiliation. This situation began to change after World War II. Especially from the 1960s on, citizens witnessed the massive rise of the welfare state, resulting in a weakening of the old societal cleavages which had formed political conflicts just a few decades earlier. At the same time, the so-far firm relationship between a voter and ‘their’ party become substantially weaker, the primary attention of voters shifted from a focus on materialistic issues to nonmaterialistic values (cf. Thomassen 2005, 10), levels of volatility started growing, and the entire political competition became less predictable (Swanson 2004; Blumler and Kavanagh 1999; Mazzoleni and Schulz 1999). Thus, the firm and strong relationship among voters and political parties came to be much weaker, and the explanatory power of structural variables for voting behaviour, such as class or religion, lessened as well. Contrarily, the influence of short-term factors and inputs such as election campaigns, actual media agenda, or scandals was much higher than ever before (Thomassen 2005, 2). This particular shift can be seen as one of the consequences caused by societal modernisation accompanied or even generated by economic growth, technological and media development, increasing levels of education, etc. (Thomassen 2005, 6) and secularisation (Hallin and Mancini 2004). Another product of party dealignment was a new kind of voter who was highly individualised and emancipated and, at the same time, showed high degrees of social and geographical mobility. Increased levels of mobility and a higher standard of living changed how they organised their everyday life and how they perceived and consumed politics. It is only natural that all these processes impacted seriously the future shape and form of party competition because voters slowly started turning away from old mass parties which were ideologically rooted in old c­ leavages and societal conflicts and, from now on, were seen as partially obsolete (Hallin and Mancini 2004, 30). The ties between traditional ‘political

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authorities’ (such as political parties, churches, trade unions) and voters radically weakened, as did the loyalty of voters to the old parties. Voters behaved more ‘instrumental’ or even ‘rational’, and new theories on the behaviour of political actors were formulated—the rational theory by Anthony Downs (1957), for example. Old institutions and organisations were not able to monopolise an entitlement to represent the interest of a certain social group anymore (cf. Blumler and Kavanagh 1999; Hallin and Mancini 2004; Swanson 2004). The result was the opening of political markets and rising demand for new parties which originated in a brand-­ new ideological background. Swanson (2004, 48) comments on this situation, saying that a politics of ‘faith and redemption’ was replaced by a politics of ‘opinion and pragmatism’. All these new conditions enabled the birth of a brand-new party type—a catch-all party (Kirchheimer 1966). These new actors understood that they need to broaden possible target groups and audiences. A simple way of doing this was to lower the ideological bar not only in everyday communication but also in general. These parties were literally ‘for everyone’ and became quite flexible and capable of addressing voter needs. However, being flexible and universal was soon not enough, and parties had to look for new ways to attract voters. It did not take long and, in doing so, they mastered techniques of modern marketing and marketing management. However, societal change was not the only change which occurred at that time. Media landscapes also transformed rapidly: new media (television in the 1950s and online media in the late 1990s) started overtaking the previously dominant partisan press—which never lost its importance—no longer leaving them as the main source of political information. The arrival and spread of television was a true game changer not only for political communication but also for the inner day-to-day life of political parties. The new medium focused especially on partisan leaders and other influential figures, which meant that daily contact of local branches with voters became less important. Generally speaking, politics become more personalised. On the one hand, broadcasting companies enabled easy and rather intimate contact between these prominent politicians and their target audiences, which was from a candidate’s perspective a good thing. Given that there were only a few television channels in every country, the probability that people who watched television on any given day would see the media presence of a politician or a candidate was much higher than today. Political parties and their staffers did their best to get their deeds favourably covered and, in fact, nothing has changed in this endeavour since then.

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On the other hand, if a politician wanted to be successful, he had to adapt to a brand-new political communication style. From the very first moment when the first political spots or debates appeared on screen, it became more and more obvious that style and form matters over content. A perfect example is the famous first televised US presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, which aired on the evening of 26 September 1960—a debate which was also broadcast on radio simultaneously. After the debate, most of the listeners called Nixon the victor, but most of the viewers proclaimed Kennedy the winner. How was that possible? Although Nixon was very well prepared, he looked exhausted, ill (he still had a low-grade fever from a recent bout of flu), and poorly shaved. That image contrasted strongly with the charisma radiating from a smiling Kennedy. Although there is no solid proof that Kennedy’s likeable appearance was really the decisive point for voters, from that moment on, politicians started to care not just about what they were talking about but also their appearance and their entertainment value. This, among other things, created favourable conditions for the flourishing of political consultancy. In the context of campaigning, Pippa Norris (2000) describes this era as ‘modern’. She stresses that campaigns became more centralised and did not rely on local branches anymore. Instead, they used the services of paid professionals and opinion polling, which meant that ‘modern’ campaigns became rather expensive and capital-intensive. However, it also meant that campaign communication was designed by communication, advertising, PR, branding, and other experts—in other words, the campaigns had become professionalised. While Pippa Norris understands this era as a second level of campaigning, other scholars perceive this period as the first period in which political parties started using political marketing tools and techniques. Before this era (1956), the term ‘political marketing’ had not even existed. The man who first used it was Stanley Kelley (1956), an American political scientist, who was reflecting on elections in the United States. And it is no coincidence that the term stems from the American environment. As Phillipe Maarek (2011, 7) notes, the ‘genesis of modern political marketing is entirely rooted in the history of political communication in the United States’. In his work, Maarek further develops this idea and presents a list of three reasons why the United States later became a true political marketing lab for the rest of the world, and why, from there, it has inspired thousands of candidates across dozens of countries. In the first place, he

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mentions the nature of the electoral system used and how its connection with tradition party primaries encourages the production and consumption of, if not endless, then at least a frequent flow of political messages. Second, it should not be forgotten that the United States has a long tradition of elections for most public offices, from sheriffs and judges to governors and presidents. Last but not least, Maarek notes that the media in the United States enjoys a large degree of freedom, which means that—besides others— political parties and candidates are allowed to buy as much airtime as they want, need, or can purchase. Maarek further distinguishes between three distinct periods in the American scenario: its infancy (1952–1960), adolescence (1964–1976), and adulthood (since the 1980s). Similar to Norris, Maarek reflects on the development of techniques and approaches to the communication of politics. Their campaign categories partially overlap and deal with the same conceptual frame of campaigning evolution. Unlike Maarek and Norris, however, other scholars perceive the development of political marketing techniques through an evolutionary marketing model (Keith 1960) and focus on different aspects of marketing and communication. Most of them also work with a three-step approach. What these scholars also have in common is that they analyse how political parties and candidates promote themselves and how they design, test, and implement the final product—their more or less unique offer to the voters. As we will see, they all focus on what political parties and candidates do before an election, or even before they start producing campaign materials or designing a political product or offer. The first stage in their view was oriented towards ‘production’, the second was ‘sales-led’, and finally, the third brought forward a ‘marketing concept’. In the first stage, parties and candidates expected the voter would appreciate their offer without much effort from the side of the parties, from the campaign perspective. In the second phase, parties and candidates realised they needed to communicate effectively, meaning at the right time and place and to the right segment of voters, if they want to succeed and attract voters. The last stage was about polling and designing the product on the basis of and according to the needs of the selected target groups. This general concept is widely used in the context of political science. Avraham Shama (1976) developed a similar approach to ­analyse American campaigning: candidate-orientation (1940–1960), sales management (the 1960s), and marketing orientation (from the mid-­1970s on).

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In the candidate orientation stage, candidates hired mass media and advertising specialists to help them with their media appearance. In the beginning, specialists only played a minor role; however, over time, their importance rose. Their goal was to increase candidates’ exposure in the (free and paid) media because they believed that increasing public awareness would be positively converted into voter preferences. The amount and length of media exposure were perceived as the key to winning an election, and campaign communication only served the promotion and distribution of the candidates (Shama 1976, 766). What voters needed and wanted at this stage was not taken into consideration (Wring 1996). Shama’s second, sales management orientation stage brought a more sophisticated approach to campaigning. Political parties started using scientific methods of opinion polling and market research with the aim of being more effective and precise by planning the campaign and targeting the right target audiences with the right messages (‘more sophisticated advertising’, which means they tested the response of target groups to achieve and prepare a tailored message to a specific audience). They were also segmenting and targeting their voters according to sociodemographic characteristics. All campaign activities were planned and coordinated, and their goal was to sell the candidate. In the last, marketing orientation stage, marketing serves as more than just a presentation and advertising device. In order to be more effective over time, it must also struggle to create a long-term relationship between a political party or candidate and voters—from the strategic perspective, it is much cheaper to mobilise a long-term supporter than to convert a new one. This relates to product management as we know it from the business environment (Wring 1996). At this point, we can say that political parties and candidates had to adopt a completely new approach to politics: The design of any political offer from this point on would start with research of the needs and wants of voters. In other words, politics was now clearly voter oriented. Communication became permanent. Political actors communicated throughout the whole election cycle, not only for just a few weeks before an election. And naturally, positioning, segmentation, and product development (including testing) became an obviously necessary part of the life of a party. Unlike in the past, political parties became more sophisticated and started using new approaches to segmentation. They may have still used ‘old’ sociodemographic characteristics to look for target groups with the best response to their marketing stimuli. However, they also adopted

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new, more sophisticated segmentation methods. They relied on psychographics, meaning they focused solely on the lifestyle of a voter rather than their gender, age, or income (however, we must keep in mind that these approaches are not mutually exclusive). The work of Avraham Shama inspired other scholars to think about politics in a similar manner. Dominic Wring (1996) in his writings on the Labour Party (UK) uses Shama’s framework and transfers and adapts it to the British conditions. Thus, Wring speaks about the era of mass propaganda, media campaigns, and political marketing. We can also find similarities to Shama’s framework in the well-known political parties’ typology of Jennifer Lees-Marshment. She produced three types of parties: product-, sales-, and market-oriented. The respective party types roughly correspond with Shama’s three stages—they differ in the number and types of steps a party undergoes before entering the actual electoral market (compare Shama’s original schema with Lees-Marshment’s typology; Shama 1976, 774; Lees-Marshment 2001, 697): A product-oriented party stands for what it believes in, a sales-oriented party looks for the best ways to sell their arguments to voters, and, finally, a market-oriented party does everything to provide voter satisfaction (Lees-Marshment 2001). Finally, Henneberg et al. (2009; compare Henneberg 2006) also speak about three schools of political marketing management (selling-oriented, instrumentally oriented, and relational PMM) when they think about the relationship of marketing techniques in politics and democracy. In their interpretation, the selling-oriented approach reflects the traditional, ideology-­based, approach to politics, and it correspondents with the first age of marketing techniques in politics as discussed by many of the authors mentioned above. The instrumentally oriented approach is seen by Henneberg et al. as the ‘normal paradigm’ and stresses that this approach is based on a ‘market-­ led’ (following) mentality. Under this paradigm, the parties are (in some cases extremely) voter-oriented, preparing a tailored offering for various segments and using sophisticated techniques to persuade voters about the value of that offer. At the same time, the parties are ready to change their offer quite rapidly and are flexible concerning the core aspects of the proposition they are selling. The pivotal point is that political parties focus only on a limited amount of transactions and on a specific timeframe (an election, for example). They don’t need to offer a long-term vision; their goal is ‘just’ to succeed at the given time in a given place (hence why Henneberg calls such politicians ‘tactical populists’; 2006, 19).

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Last but not least, the relational approach puts stress on (building) enduring relationships between political actors which brings benefits for them and society at large. In this case, the political offer is shaped with the help of marketing methods. However, it is rooted in core (ideological) values of a party (Henneberg 2006, 19). Which means they have a long-­ term vision they try to implement, (permanently) market, and communicate. As we can see, most authors identified three evolutionary stages of campaigning or/and the use of marketing approaches in politics in general. Even if they don’t apply exactly the same labels for the respective periods, they talk about similar phenomena and processes. Before we go any further, however, we must remind ourselves that all the above discussed party types can exist and operate simultaneously. The fact that we focused on development and changes over time does not mean that today there are no parties strictly focused on their own vision of society and the world. On the contrary, they operate next to each other and seek voter support.

Key Concepts on Electoral Campaign Development All the processes mentioned above are either accompanied by or producing several effects. Unfortunately, we do not have enough space to mention them all and discuss them in more detail. Therefore, we will only focus on a few concepts which are, from our point of view, the most important because they represent an integral part of processes which can be witnessed in many (if not in all) Central and Eastern Europe countries in connection with the development of campaigning. These include the concepts of professionalisation (Americanisation) and personalisation.

Professionalisation The terms ‘Americanisation’ and ‘professionalisation’ are often used as synonyms. At the same time, there is no rigid definition of either of them, and they are used quite freely, according to ‘gut feelings’. That means that for various scholars, they might (but they do not have to) have different meanings. In general, it expresses how campaigns have become more strategic, more technical, or less amateurish than in the past (see Lilleker 2006, 30).

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Americanisation then basically means borrowing campaign ideas, tactics, and even people from the United States to improve campaigns in, for instance, European countries. Whereas professionalisation refers to the process of making campaigns ‘better’ in terms of sophisticated approaches and the deployment of recent tools and techniques (and working with marketing professionals from the business and political fields), Americanisation refers to the process of adopting new techniques and approaches which were recently tested in (the highly professionalised) campaigns of the United States. Key features of the professionalisation process of political communication are, among others (for a full overview, see Lilleker 2006, 32): 1. nationally coordinated campaigns which are operationalised in a decentralised, local contest; 2. the creation of campaign units within parties and the use of consultants; 3. the use of market intelligence; 4. media focused communication; and 5. a permanent campaign. Despite the fact that there is no common definition of both terms, Gibson and Römmele (2009) offer a useful workaround and tool to measure the actual level of campaign professionalisation of a single political party or candidate. At the same time, if there is enough data available, their method enables the process of professionalisation to be tracked over time. The scholars designed a multidimensional index called CAMPROF which focused on various aspects of campaigning understood as critical in assessing campaigns in terms of professionalisation. Gibson and Römmele (2009, 269) focus, among other things, on the use of: • telemarketing (for contacting members or outside target groups); • direct mail (to members or outside target groups); • an internal Internet communication system; • an email ‘sign-up’ or subscription list for regular news updates; • outside campaign headquarters; • permanent campaigning; • outside public relations/media consultants; • (computerised) voter databases; • opinion polling and opposition research.

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The researchers graded every single activity with points, and at the end, they summed up the figures. The result was the actual level of professionalisation of a given campaign. It is more than obvious that it was then rather easy to compare various parties among themselves or track their progress in time. However, the index is unfortunately not perfect, and it is not easy to work with it. From the methodological point of view, the grading was based on the educated guesses of scholars, which means they were subjective, and in extreme cases, they could show reliability issues if replicated. At the same time, this approach can be data-demanding. Especially when a researcher wants to examine the process of professionalisation over time and must look to the past. Most of the information about how a campaign was planned and what tools exactly were used (what was part of the media mix) is not public, which complicates matters. Moreover, the researcher becomes dependent on sources whose reliability can be put into question. Another issue is that the list of monitored campaign features and tools are hardly comprehensive. Of course, this is a minor issue which can easily be solved by adding new items to the index, such as the use of social media (or new communication channels in general) or using ‘American’ tactics (like door-to-door canvassing, Get Out The Vote, the use of volunteers, or the use of lawn signs or posters in voter’s windows). Last but not least, the CAMPROF index provides only limited possibilities in assessing a party system as a whole. Simply summing up the CAMPROF values for each party could be an option, but it would not tell us much about the dynamics of the development. In the following country chapters, we focus on most of the scale items we discussed above. However, we do not count scores for every single party. Instead, we discuss the development of campaigning in each country on a general level and look at a single decisive moment which could be labelled a ‘marketing revolution in politics’ there.

The Personalisation of Politics Personalisation is a common phenomenon which occurs in many countries. However, the intensity level of the manifestation of this process differs in various states and is influenced by many variables, e.g. the electoral system, political culture or tradition. Similar to the concept of professionalisation, there is no general agreement on a single definition of the phenomena, and it can mean many

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things for many scholars. However, in this case, thanks to Lauri Karvonen and his book The Personalization of Politics (2010), we have comprehensive literature and research in this field review at our disposal, which serves as a perfect starting point for our further consideration of the phenomenon. The core idea of the personalisation of politics concept is that, over time, individual actors (candidates) have become more and more important at the expense of institutional or collective identities (political parties). Personalisation is also perceived as a process which changes over time, and it enables the opportunity to easily compare the level of personalisation in time: t and t + 1 (Karvonen 2010, 4; cf. Rahat and Sheafer 2007, 65 or Swanson and Mancini 1996, 10). Regarding the main topic of this book, personalised campaigns should be more candidate-centred than before, and the leader should be more and more important than anything else.1 Because personalisation takes place on various levels and thus can be perceived as a multidimensional phenomenon, Rahat and Sheafer (2007) made an effort to distinguish among different types of personalisation. According to them, personalisation occurs on the institutional level, such as the personalisation of an electoral system (how many preference votes may a voter cast, and so forth); the level of media, for example, in the coverage of individuals versus institutions; and the behavioural level, as in, for instance, how much a leader’s personality matters to voters and how intensive are the candidate’s personal campaigns. The ‘classical’ literature on personalisation, however, overly stresses the change over time and, at the same time, it omits at least one important thing. The results of time-series studies in the field of personalisation depends to a large extent on the length of the series: There will probably be a substantial difference in the level of personalisation in the 1960s and today; however, if we compare two subsequent elections (in a fully personalised environment) we might not notice anything of interest. Is it that 1  A leader and their personal traits can serve as heuristic, which facilitates the decisionmaking process (for a general discussion on heuristics in politics, see Lau 2003; cf. Popkin 1991; Lau and Redlawsk 2001; Lefevere 2011; McGraw 2000, 345–346; Sniderman et al. 1991, 19; Lupia 1994 and others). Even a quick look at a candidate provides a voter with complex information about the candidate (like gender, age, race, overall likeability, etc.) and, in some cases, even about their political positions and competencies for holding office (in cases where the voter knows their party affiliation or simply based on stereotypes) (Fershtman et al. 2005; Rödin and Özcan 2013; Castillo and Petrie 2010; Schubert et al. 2011; Banducci et al. 2003; Buckley et al. 2007; Todorov et al. 2005).

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simple? We believe it is not. Because like Pruysers, Cross, and Katz points out (2018, 3; cf. Eibl 2016), a ‘country’s politics may be more personalized than another (meaning that persons are more important in the first than in the second), but it may nonetheless experience less personalisation (the importance of persons is increasing more slowly, if at all). In other words, politics can be highly personalized without personalisation.’ With regards to campaigning, as Eibl (2016) states, personalisation can be also seen as a strategic or even a tactical tool of candidates and political parties because personal qualities or the (celebrity) status of a candidate might be the selling point for many voters and something which distinguishes their political offer from others. In other words, political parties, at some point, have to decide whether they will put more stress on their programmes or their leaders and candidates (cf. McAllister 2015; Adam and Maier 2010, 213). In this volume, when we talk about personalisation, we follow the logic of Adam and Maier’s definition (2010, 213). Thus, we comment mainly on changes in the focus of politics from topics to people and from parties to politicians. * * * As we have seen, parties had a long journey from a stable and predictable environment to one which was dynamic and constantly changing. Political parties in Western democracies have had many decades to adapt to this new situation—some more successfully than others. Although back then we could identify breaking points which have been crucial to the further development of electoral campaigns, parties, and candidates have always had some time to get used to a new environment. This was different in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. Political parties had newly acquired freedom and were entering political competition at a time when technology already allowed many things. Technological advances in this region outstripped the political reality and, in the early 1990s, the parties had to grapple with it—they had to learn quickly how to use it. On the other hand, it is exciting to observe and analyse how the parties in this region have fought with new media, new approaches, and new kinds of interactions and relationships brought forth by further technological developments at the turn of the millennium, especially the advent of the Internet. Were parties able to adjust their communication, to keep up with the new trends, or did they need extra time to adapt?

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In the following chapters, we will look at the development and changes of campaign communication in eighteen (East-)European countries divided into four sections respecting the geopolitical situation of these countries. Each of these sections are introduced by brief regional overview presenting a basic description of the region, after which country specific case study chapters follow. A short summary for each of these sections is provided as well.

References Adam, Silke, and Michaela Maier. 2010. Personalization of Politics A Critical Review and Agenda for Research. Annals of the International Communication Association 34 (1): 213–257. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.20 10.11679101. Banducci, Susan, Michael Trasher, Colin Rallings, and Jeffrey Karp. 2003. Candidate Appearance Cues in Low-Information Elections. Paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. http://www.jkarp.com/pdf/apsa_2003.pdf. Blumler, Jay G., and Dennis Kavanagh. 1999. The Third Age of Political Communication: Influences and Features. Political Communication 16 (3): 209–230. https://doi.org/10.1080/105846099198596. Buckley, Fiona, Neil Collins, and Theresa Reidy. 2007. Ballot Paper Photographs and Low-Information Elections in Ireland. Politics 27 (3): 174–181. https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9256.2007.00297.x. Castillo, Marco, and Ragan Petrie. 2010. Discrimination in the Lab: Does Information Trump Appearance? Games and Economic Behavior 68 (1): 50–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2009.04.015. Crompton, John, and Charles Lamb. 1986. Marketing Government and Social Services. Chichester: Willey. Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper. Eibl, Otto. 2016. Cesta k (experimentálnímu) výzkumu efektů osobnostní stránky politiky pod jednou konceptuální střechou: metodologická poznámka k výzkumu personalizace. European Electoral Studies 11 (1): 34–43. Fershtman, Chaim, Uri Gneezy, and Frank Verboven. 2005. Discrimination and Nepotism: The Efficiency of the Anonymity Rule. The Journal of Legal Studies 34 (2): 371–396. https://doi.org/10.1086/429846. Gibson, Rachel K., and Andrea Römmele. 2009. Measuring the Professionalization of Political Campaigning. Party Politics 15 (3): 265–293. https://doi. org/10.1177/1354068809102245. Hallin, Daniel C., and Paolo Mancini. 2004. Americanization, Globalization, Secularization: Understanding the Convergence of Media Systems and Political

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Communication. In Comparing Political Communication: Theories, Cases, and Challenges, ed. Frank Esser and Barbara Pfetsch, 25–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Henneberg, Stephan. 2006. Leading or Following? A Theoretical Analysis of Political Marketing Postures. Journal of Political Marketing 5 (3): 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1300/J199v05n03_02. Henneberg, Stephan, Margaret Scammell, and Nicholas O’Shaughnessy. 2009. Political Marketing Management and Theories of Democracy. Marketing Theory 9 (2): 165–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593109103060. Karvonen, Lauri. 2010. The Personalisation of Politics: A Study of Parliamentary Democracies. Colchester: ECPR Press. Keith, Robert J. 1960. The Marketing Revolution. Journal of Marketing 24 (3): 35–38. Kelley, Stanley. 1956. Professional Public Relations and Political Power. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press. Kirchheimer, Otto. 1966. The Transformation of the Western European Party Systems. In Political Parties and Political Development, ed. Joseph LaPalombra and Myron Weiner, 177–200. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Lau, Richard. 2003. Models of Decision-Making. In Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, ed. David Sears, Leonie Huddy, and Robert Jervis, 19–59. New York: Oxford University Press. Lau, Richard, and David Redlawsk. 2001. Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision Making. American Journal of Political Science 45 (4): 951–971. https://doi.org/10.2307/2669334. Lees-Marshment, Jennifer. 2001. The Marriage of Politics and Marketing. Political Studies 49 (4): 692–713. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00337. Lefevere, Jonas. 2011. Campaign Effects on Voter Decision Making. PhD diss., University of Antwerp. Lilleker, Darren. 2006. Key Concepts in Political Communication. London: Sage. Lipset, Martin S., and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Free Press. Lupia, Arthur. 1994. Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections. The American Political Science Review 88 (1): 63–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/2944882. Maarek, Phillipe. 2011. Campaign Communication & Political Marketing. Chichester: Willey-Blackwell. Mazzoleni, Gianpietro, and Winfried Schulz. 1999. “Mediatization” of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy? Political Communication 16 (3): 247–261. https:// doi.org/10.1080/105846099198613. McAllister, Ian. 2015. The Personalization of Politics in Australia. Party Politics 27 (3): 337–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068813487111.

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McGraw, Kathleen M. 2000. Contributions of the Cognitive Approach to Political Psychology. Political Psychology 21 (4): 805–832. https://doi.org/10.1111/ 0162-895X.00217. Norris, Pippa. 2000. The Evolution of Campaign Communication. In A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Post-Industrial Societies, ed. Pippa Norris, 137–161. New York: Cambridge University Press. Popkin, Samuel L. 1991. The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pruysers, Scott, William P.  Cross, and Richard S.  Katz. 2018. Personalism, Personalization and Party Politics. In The Personalization of Democratic Politics and the Challenge for Political Parties, ed. William P. Cross, Richard S. Katz, and Scott Pruysers. London: ECPR Press. Rahat, Gideon, and Tamir Sheafer. 2007. The Personalization(s) of Politics: Israel, 1949–2003. Political Communication 24 (1): 65–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10584600601128739. Reid, David. 1988. Marketing the Political Product. European Journal of Marketing 22 (9): 34–47. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005299. Rödin, Magnus, and Gulay Özcan. 2013. Is It How You Look or Speak That Matters?: An Experimental Study Exploring the Mechanisms of Ethnic Discrimination. Working Papers 009, Bahcesehir University, Betam. https:// ideas.repec.org/p/bae/wpaper/009.html. Schubert, James N., Margaret A. Curran, and Carmen Strungaru. 2011. Physical Attractiveness, Issue Agreement, and Assimilation Effects in Candidate Appraisal. Politics and the Life Sciences 30 (1): 33–49. https://doi.org/10.2990/ 30_1_33. Shama, Avraham. 1976. The Marketing of Political Candidates. Academy of Marketing Science 4 (4): 764–777. Sniderman, Paul, Richard Brody, and Phillip Tetlock. 1991. Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swanson, David L. 2004. Transnational Trends in Political Communication: Conventional Views and New Realities. In Comparing Political Communication: Theories, Cases, and Challenges, ed. Frank Esser and Barbara Pfetsch, 45–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swanson, David, and Paolo Mancini. 1996. Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy: An International Study of Innovations in Electoral Campaigning and Their Consequences. Westport: Praeger. Thomassen, Jacques. 2005. Introduction. In The European Voter, ed. Jacques Thomassen, 1–21. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Todorov, Alexander, Anesu Mandisodza, Amir Goren, and Crystal Hall. 2005. Inferences of Competence from Faces Predict Election Outcomes. Science 308 (5728): 1623–1626. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1110589. Wring, Dominic. 1996. Political Marketing and Party Development in Britain: A “Secret” History. European Journal of Marketing 30 (10/11): 92–103. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090569610149818.

PART I

Baltic States

CHAPTER 2

Characteristics of the Baltic States Vít Hloušek

When seen from a distance, the Baltic states seem to resemble each other quite a bit. All three Baltic countries are comparably smaller than their European peers. Estonia has roughly 1.4 million inhabitants, Latvia 1.9, and the biggest, Lithuania, has 2.8 million. All three countries shared similar burdens in twentieth century history like the German and Soviet occupations (a comprehensive account of the contemporary history of the Baltic states is offered in Smith et  al. 2002). Their current geopolitical situation has been stabilised by entering NATO and the European Union in 2004. This symbolic Westernisation has been accompanied by more intensive economic ties with Western and Central Europe. Even geopolitically speaking, the Baltic states have reassured somewhat the so far fragile position of countries bordering the rest of post-Soviet space (Ekiert and Hanson 2003, 33–37), yet these are exposed to extremely strong Russian propaganda as well as economic influence. The presence of numerous Russian-speaking minorities reinforces this issue even more. All three states experienced a sharp decline driven by the Eurozone crisis after 2008. However, all countries reacted with very sound domestic austerity measures and even fostered economic interdependence with the core European V. Hloušek (*) Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_2

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Union by entering the Eurozone. Estonia was first in 2011, despite the peaking economic depression; Latvia and Lithuania followed suit in 2014 and 2015 respectively. A closer look reveals interesting differences. Exaggerating a bit, Estonia is looking more towards the Scandinavian area for inspiration, meanwhile Lithuania feels more like a part of Central Europe in some respect. The situation of minorities is not the same either; the Russian-speaking minority constitutes almost twenty-eight per cent of the Estonian population and more than thirty per cent of the Latvian one. The problems with the incorporation of these minorities into the majority society have not been fully solved, although both countries increased their effort in this respect vis-à-vis the perspective of EU membership at the beginning of the millennium. In Lithuania, only some six per cent of the population is Russian. The biggest Polish minority, equipped with considerable cultural autonomy and represented by a specific political party, the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, composes 6.6 per cent of the Lithuanian citizenry. The political systems of all the Baltic countries fit the model of parliamentary democracies (for a comprehensive account on Baltic State politics, see Auers 2015). In the case of Lithuania, some authors (Krupavićius 2013, 209–213) state that the regime is on the verge of a semi-presidential democracy or premier-presidential system described by Shugart and Carey (1992, 23–24). The stronger role of the Lithuanian president is supported by direct legitimisation via the popular elections of the head of state. Both Estonia and Latvia have parliamentary elections for president. In the Estonian case, a specific electoral assembly is established in case the parliament is not able to elect a new head of state. The indirect nature of the elections is however preserved. In all three countries, despite some moments whereby presidents stretch the strict limits given to them by their constitutions (Auers 2013; Krupavičius 2013; Toomla 2013), the government is the major executive body, and there is a link of interdependence between the parliament and the government. Typically, Baltic countries are ruled by coalition governments in which the ‘[p]olitical elite in the Baltic states have favoured minority or minimum-­ winning coalitions over surplus majorities’ (Auers 2015, 51). All three parliaments are unicameral assemblies elected for four years. The electoral systems are proportional representation in Estonia and Latvia with a five per cent threshold. The Latvian electoral system produces slightly more proportional results because of the smaller number of constituencies (five compared to twelve in the case of Latvia). The number

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of deputies is similar, 101 in the case of Estonia and 100 in the Latvian case. Lithuania introduced a mixed electoral system with seventy deputies elected by proportional representation in one nation-wide district (a threshold of five per cent for a party and seven per cent for a coalition) and seventy-one deputies elected in single-member districts through a runoff system. Lithuania has a closed-list system, while Estonia and Latvia offer open lists to voters. The Latvian system allows voters to take the biggest liberty in making their own rank of candidates on a particular list, which is explained in more detail in the country chapter. One very important feature of the Estonian electoral system is the ability to cast votes online. This option was first introduced in 2005 at the local elections and later implemented for parliamentary elections (since 2007) as well as elections to the European Parliament (starting with the 2009 European parliamentary elections). The original roots of these pluralist party systems can be traced back to the 1905 Russian Revolution, when the political parties represented ethnic Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians at the local level of politics. In the period between the world wars, all three countries established democratic political systems with plural party systems. Despite the quick replacement of democracy with soft authoritarian regimes, in 1926 in Lithuania and in 1934 in Estonia and Latvia, political parties operated around all the cleavages of Baltic politics. The ‘Lithuanian model’ consisted of a rather strong Christian democratic party attracting voters due to cleavages between both church-state and rural-urban as well as an agrarian party which fought for predominantly rural voters. In Estonia and Latvia—more industrialised and Protestant countries—the Christian democratic parties were comparably smaller. As were local liberals; social democrats attracted more numerous industrial workers, yet roughly, thirty per cent of the population in both countries supported agrarian parties. In Latvia, regionalist formations from Latgale created a fifth pole in  local party competition (Cabada et al. 2014, 14–15, 21–22, 29–30). The renewal of party pluralism after the German and Soviet occupations originally evolved around two closely interconnected cleavages of transformation: communism versus democratisation and nationalist-­ emancipative stances versus pro-Russian policies. Rather quickly after regaining independence in 1990–1992 (the period between declaring independence and its international recognition), the Popular Fronts— broad pro-democratic and pro-independence umbrella movements—split and the new plural party systems emerged. There are multiparty systems in

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all three countries, and there is a multidimensional structure of party competition in all three Baltic states as well. The left-right cleavage impacts alongside the ethnic cleavage in Estonia and Latvia. In Latvia, the rural-­ urban cleavage has proved to be of minor yet palpable importance. The Lithuanian case is different since there is no ethnic cleavage cutting across the main left-right socio-economic cleavage, with some repercussions for the rural-urban cleavage as well. In terms of party families traditionally represented in the Baltic party system since the 1990s, there is some long-­ term bias of voters ‘towards the parties right from the centre and slight underrepresentation of left wing parties’ (Auers 2015, 109–114). From the long-term perspective, the Estonian party system seems more stable than those of Latvia and Lithuania. In Latvia, the ‘life expectancy’ of many parliamentary parties in fact does not exceed one parliamentary period. In Lithuania, the 2000 and 2004 elections shook the balance of power in favour of new and sometimes protest parties. Already, in Latvia and in Lithuania around the turn of millennium, the entrepreneurial parties started to play strong challenger roles to the incumbents. As the entrepreneurial parties represent a specific relationship between business and politics in term of sources, modes of operation, and organisational patterns (Hloušek and Kopeček 2017), they represent as well impulses for electoral and political campaigning to be typically more professional, more centralised, treating voters more like consumers of politics. In other words, another reason to delve into the study of campaigning in Baltic politics.

References Auers, Daunis. 2013. Seven Democrats and a Dictator: Formal and Informal Powers of Latvia’s Presidents. In Presidents Above Parties? Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power, ed. Vít Hloušek, 191–203. Brno: Muni press. ———. 2015. Comparative Politics and Government of The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the 21st Century. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cabada, Ladislav, Vít Hloušek, and Petr Jurek. 2014. Party Systems in East Central Europe. Lanham: Lexington Books. Ekiert, Grzegorz, and Stephen E. Hanson. 2003. Time, Space, and Institutional Change in Central and Eastern Europe. In Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Grzegorz Ekiert and Stephen E.  Hanson, 15–48. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Hloušek, Vít, and Lubomír Kopeček. 2017. Entrepreneurial Parties: A Basic Conceptual Framework. Czech Journal of Political Science 24 (2): 83–91. Krupavičius, Algis. 2013. Lithuania’s President: A Formal and Informal Power. In Presidents Above Parties? Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power, ed. Vít Hloušek, 205–232. Brno: Muni press. Shugart, Matthew S., and John M.  Carey. 1992. Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. Cambridge and New  York: Cambridge University Press. Smith, David J., Artis Pabriks, Aldis Purs, and Thomas Lane. 2002. The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. London and New York: Routledge. Toomla, Rein. 2013. The Presidency in the Republic of Estonia. In Presidents Above Parties? Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power, ed. Vít Hloušek, 167–190. Brno: Muni press.

CHAPTER 3

Estonia Marju Lauristin and Sten Hansson

Country Overview Over the past nearly thirty years, Estonia’s political development has been defined by a relatively stable party system and an ideological consolidation around the centre of the traditional left–right/liberal–conservative spectrum. Estonia has benefitted from a consistent economic and foreign policy, and a positive stance towards European integration. Since 1991, when the Estonian Communist Party disbanded itself, extreme left- and right-wing parties have not gained ground in Estonia’s political landscape. Neither has Estonia had a completely left-wing government. After the restoration of independence, the first government was formed by the Christian democratic party Pro Patria, which has maintained a moderately nationalist platform and has participated in governing coalitions most of the time ever since. The Social Democrats, who mostly represent social-liberal views, have participated in four governments. The dominant centre-right politics has been reinforced by the Estonian Reform Party which led the government between 2005 and 2016. The centre-left Estonian Centre Party that took the lead thereafter M. Lauristin (*) • S. Hansson University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_3

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has enjoyed the support of the majority of Russian-speaking voters. The Conservative People’s Party of Estonia achieved significant electoral gains in 2019, running on an anti-liberal Eurosceptic platform which represented a departure from the beaten path of Estonian political development. Three specific sociopolitical characteristics that influence elections and campaigns in Estonia should be highlighted at the outset. 1. Ethnos and demos. When the Republic of Estonia was restored in 1991, ending half a century of illegal Soviet rule, Estonian citizenship was granted to everyone who had been or whose ancestors had been Estonian citizens at the time of Estonia’s annexation and occupation by the Soviet Union in 1940. These were predominantly Estonianspeaking ethnic Estonians. The rest of the population—approximately five hundred thousand people who had migrated to Estonia from Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union during the occupation—were given the right to apply for citizenship by naturalisation. Since then, one of the most complex challenges for Estonian democratic development has been the need to decrease the structural divide between the ethnic composition of the population and the composition of the electorate. Since 1993, inhabitants who do not have Estonian citizenship have been granted the right to vote in local elections. Over the years, around two hundred thousand individuals have acquired Estonian citizenship by naturalisation. Currently, the Soviet-era Russian-speaking settlers and their descendants in Estonia form thirtythree per cent of the population and around twenty per cent of the parliamentary electorate. Whether Russian-speaking inhabitants identify themselves politically with Estonia or are rather under the influence of Russian media and the Kremlin has remained one of the recurring themes in political debates (Vihalemm et al. 2019). 2. Free press. Estonia ranks high in terms of the freedom of the press, placing eleventh in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index (Reporters Without Borders 2019). The Estonian media environment is pluralistic and a variety of public and private television channels and radio stations, as well as a range of newspapers, offer diverse views. Internet-­ based news services and social media are growing in popularity. 3. E-voting. Since 2005, all voters have the possibility to vote remotely via the Internet during early voting (Alvarez et al. 2009). Over the

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years, e-voting has become a widely used voting method. It is convenient, requires a minimum level of computer literacy, and ­ could be seen as easing political participation (Vassil et  al. 2016). The share of internet votes within total votes was 5.5 per cent in 2007, 15.8 per cent in 2011, 30.5 per cent in 2015, and 43.8 per cent in 2019.

Legal Framework According to the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, supreme political authority in Estonia is vested in the people who, through citizens eligible to vote, exercise it in the elections of the Riigikogu (parliament of Estonia) and referendums. Citizens over eighteen years of age are entitled to vote. The 101 members of parliament are elected using a form of proportional representation for a four-year term. Voters vote for a specific candidate on the party list in their district, so candidates are incentivised to run personal campaigns in addition to party campaigns to cultivate personal votes (Tavits 2010). Parliamentary election campaigns are mainly regulated by The Riigikogu Election Act, adopted in 2002. Regular elections to the Riigikogu are held on the first Sunday in March every four years. The electoral campaign commences forty-five days before and ends one day prior to election day. The section on campaigning restrictions states: The time of active election campaigning is deemed to be the time as of the last day for registration of candidates. Active election campaigning is prohibited on election day. Election campaigning is prohibited in polling places and premises through which voters enter polling places. (Riigikogu Election Act)

There is also an explicit ban on outdoor political advertisements during the official campaign period. Moreover, the Advertising Act, passed in 2008, sets out the basic requirements for advertising, which applies to political advertising as well. According to the act: Advertising shall, given ordinary attention, be clearly distinguishable from other information and its content, and design and presentation shall ensure that it is recognised as advertising.

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Advertising which in any way misleads or is likely to mislead the persons to whom it is directed or whom it reaches and which, by reason of its ­misleading nature, is likely to affect their economic behaviour or which, for those reasons, injures or is likely to injure a competitor of the person placing the advertising, is prohibited. (Advertising Act)

Broadcast advertising is regulated by the Media Services Act, which entered into force in 2011. It states that the hourly transmission time of television, radio advertising spots, and teleshopping may not exceed twelve minutes. Parties and candidates may purchase airtime on commercial television and radio channels. Estonian Public Broadcasting does not transmit advertising. The Political Parties Act, adopted in 1994, is the primary law regulating campaign financing. It stipulates that political parties and single candidates must submit a report to the political party funding supervision committee on the expenses of their election campaign within one month of election day. All reports are made public.

Historical Overview of Campaigns Like most other Eastern European countries, Estonia’s transition from single-party rule of the Soviet communist regime to a pluralist democracy was triggered by mass protest movements which emerged in the late 1980s. Breaking away from the Kremlin’s rule—later called the Singing Revolution—was achieved peacefully, riding the nationwide wave of citizen activism. In 1991, the Estonian Communist Party disbanded itself. The Estonian Supreme Soviet proclaimed Estonian independence, thus restoring the Republic of Estonia, which had been legally established in 1918 and illegally occupied in 1940 by the Soviet Union. In 1992, the new constitution was adopted in a referendum, establishing a proportional voting system and parliamentary government. The first parliamentary elections were held in 1992 according to a new Election Act that established a five per cent electoral threshold and the use of a modified D’Hondt distribution method for calculating election results. Admittedly, from an ordinary voter’s perspective, this complex system was—and still is—rather difficult to comprehend. The central conflict of the 1992 election campaign was a stand-off between two possible courses of development for the country: either radical reforms which would constitute a decisive break from the Soviet

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institutional legacy or a more conservative step-by-step approach to transforming the state. As there were no professional politicians in the newly established parties and commercial advertising was still in its post-­ Soviet infancy, the first election campaign was simple and sincere in its form. Voters were promised that Estonia would ‘return to Europe’, that there would be more jobs in private enterprises, and that the standard of living would improve. The hopes of people were captured in the slogan ‘Estonia is coming back!’. The most prominent campaign poster, prepared by the Pro Patria union, carried a slogan calling for ‘A clean slate!’ and depicted a gentleman in a white shirt sweeping a doorway with a large broom. Pro Patria won the election and formed a coalition government which triggered rapid reforms to ‘desovietise’ the country. The main forms of campaigning were public meetings, articles in newspapers, printed manifestos, and modest posters, often with black-and-­ white photos. Professional campaigners and public relations firms were nowhere to be found, so some politicians produced their own ‘homemade’ television ads which were aired in a designated slot on the national television channel. Some politicians also experimented with radio advertising. The most successful campaign was launched by a former United States Army officer, whose surname Toomepuu (meaning ‘bird cherry’ in Estonian) fortuitously was mentioned in the chorus of a popular song at the time. Toomepuu played this song in his radio advertisements and gathered the most personal votes in the elections. The campaign leading to the second parliamentary elections in 1995 was still rather amateurish in its form. More emphasis was placed on introducing individual candidates on posters and in simple television ads. The central conflict of the campaign—radical reforms versus slower changes— remained the same as during the first elections. However, this time the radical reformers were on the defensive. Centrist parties appealed to ‘reform fatigue’ of the electorate by using references to a ‘secure home’ and an ‘orderly state’. The newly established liberal Reform Party appealed to competence using the slogan ‘Wealth and intelligence wins’. The governing parties also emphasised reasonableness and practicability, using slogans such as ‘A thinking person’s choice’ (Pro Patria) and ‘Good pay for a good job’ (Moderates). The third elections in 1999 were the first where a prominent role was played by professional media and advertising agencies hired by political parties. The campaigns became more colourful and eye-catching. Political parties came out with professionally developed visual brands. Besides traditional

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mass media channels, there was a noticeable rise in the use of high-quality outdoor advertising. Billboards displaying digitally enhanced portraits of the candidates appeared on streets together with visually striking (but contentwise often rather generic) slogans. One of the most memorable elements from that campaign was the slogan ‘Enough of this nonsense!’ pasted on garbage bins all over Tallinn by the Moderate People’s Party. The fourth elections in 2003 marked a radical change in the nature of political campaigning in Estonia. The newly established Res Publica Party won its first parliamentary elections using professional and aggressive marketing strategies, such as huge expensive billboards and dramatised television commercials. Res Publica’s campaign was built upon short and striking slogans and buzzwords like ‘zero tolerance’, ‘choose order’, and ‘incorruptibles’. The new party also exploited their newness as a winning formula, as exemplified in their slogan ‘Vote for new politics’ (Sikk 2012). After winning the elections and forming a government, Res Publica went ahead with even more bold and provocative campaigning. Their campaign leading to the 2003 referendum on Estonia’s European Union membership used slogans like ‘More sexy men’, and their 2004 election campaign for the European Parliament—the first European election in the country—was critical towards the European Union, captured in the slogan ‘We will break through’ (Tigasson 2009). Notably, the rapid rise of Res Publica was followed by a quick fall as the party failed to win a single seat in the European Parliament and dropped out of the government in 2005 (Taagepera 2006). In light of the excessive use of outdoor advertising during the 2003 and 2004 campaigns, the following new clause was added to the Election Act in 2005: Advertising of independent candidates, political parties, or persons who stand as candidates in the list of a political party, or their logo or other distinctive mark or programme on a building, civil engineering works, inner or outer side of public transport vehicles or taxis, and other political outdoor advertising shall be prohibited during active campaigning. (Riigikogu Election Act)

Later on, several attempts were made to replace this prohibition with more sensible restrictions to the size and expenditures of outdoor advertising, but at the time of this writing, an agreement on this has yet to be reached.

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By the fifth parliamentary elections in 2007, it seemed that the steering of political campaigns had been entirely handed over to advertising agencies. They produced playful television commercials and outdoors ads featuring fictional characters, such as Santa Claus. The campaigns amplified an understanding of party politics as an athletic competition between adversarial teams. Campaigns included more character attacks than ever before and made use of over-the-top populist promises. The Reform Party won the elections by promising to rank Estonia among the five wealthiest countries in Europe by 2022 (Solvak and Pettai 2008). In light of the increasingly aggressive anti-Western rhetoric of the Russian president, Putin, Estonia’s national security was constructed as one of the central conflicts of the campaign. Shortly after the elections, the newly appointed government relocated the Soviet World War II monument ‘Bronze Soldier’, a controversial act of memory politics which brought riots to the capital, Tallinn (Brüggemann and Kasekamp 2008; Ehala 2009; Selg 2013). This resulted in further ‘securitisation’ of minority issues in Estonian political discourse (Lauristin and Vihalemm 2009). The 2011 election campaign focused on the opposition between the two leading parties: the Reform Party and the Centre Party. An OSCE report pointed out that campaigning was subdued due to the limited financial resources of political parties in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. There was a significant focus on low-key, relatively inexpensive methods, including leafleting and door-to-door campaigning. Some parties took over cafes where a range of events, including concerts and other cultural programmes, were held, at which campaign materials were distributed and candidates met with voters. Online advertising was used extensively. (OSCE/ ODIHR 2011, 15)

Parties and individual candidates had started to use social media—Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter—to spread their campaign messages, and various online election games, such as Voter Compass, were launched by Estonian Public Broadcasting as well as other media outlets (e-­Governance Academy 2011). A candidate survey showed that candidates’ electoral performance was largely shaped by their own campaign spending, and that candidates were more successful if they conducted more personalised campaigns (Trumm 2016).

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The seventh elections in 2015 marked a further increase in the use of social media for campaigning. However, several parties also reported that they invested more time and effort in door-to-door campaigning and meetings with potential voters at various local institutions, shopping centres, and campaign buses. Direct mail flooded citizens’ mailboxes with tons of printed leaflets and brochures. The run-up to the 2015 election also saw the rise of the ethno-­ nationalist Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE), who won 8.1 per cent of the vote by campaigning heavily against the civil partnership law on registered partnerships for same-sex couples which had been adopted by the parliament in 2014. This was a notable development because up until then this kind of right-wing populist rhetoric had had relatively little traction in Estonian public discourse (Auers and Kasekamp 2013). EKRE succeeded in mobilising socially conservative voters who mistrusted politicians (Trumm 2018). It signalled the growing prominence in Estonian political discourse of the value conflict between conservative and liberal worldviews.

Recent Trends By the 2019 parliamentary elections, social media had become the main campaign platform for the majority of Estonian political parties. However, door-to-door campaigning also reached new heights. It has been claimed that during the campaign Prime Minister Jüri Ratas alone shook hands with and gave a chocolate bar to more than one hundred thousand people. Over the past decades, right-wing populist politics has been gaining ground across Europe (Mudde 2007; Wodak et al. 2013; Wodak 2015). The ways in which right-wing populist parties utilise social media to successfully mobilise voters is increasingly attracting scholarly attention (Norocel and Szabó 2019). In Estonia, the type of rhetoric which expresses deep suspicion towards (or opposition against) the ‘ruling elites’ and mainstream media, immigration, European integration, and various liberal rights, has been adopted by EKRE, who achieved the largest overall electoral gain in 2019. Like their counterparts in other countries, EKRE has stood out among competitors by embracing an emotional and confrontational communicative style which contrasts with the more rational and pragmatic stances

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represented by most other parties. They have been effective in articulating fear and conspiracy narratives about the demise of ‘traditional family ­values and gender roles’, the massive influx of immigrants/refugees, and the European Union becoming a ‘super-state’ which destroys ‘nation-states’ (Kasekamp et al. 2019). They have succeeded in gaining and holding the attention of mainstream news media by organising torchlight marches and provoking public outrage. Researchers have suggested that social media is beneficial to right-wing populist parties and candidates because it allows them to address their voters more directly. Circumventing traditional news media provides them the ‘freedom to uncontestedly articulate their ideology and spread their messages’ (Engesser et al. 2017, 2; see also Krämer 2017). However, analysis of Donald Trump’s strategic social media use during his 2016 presidential campaign provides a different perspective: Provocative messages could be aimed at setting the agenda of the mainstream media rather than bypassing it. While his opponents spent heavily on television advertisements throughout the primaries, Trump instead used social media tools to provoke media coverage, under the (apparently correct) assumption that free media coverage would be worth a lot more than paid political advertising. Trump did not need a fundraising apparatus, or early support from major donors or party elites—not because he was a billionaire, but because his initial campaign was comparatively so cheap to run! (Karpf 2017, 9)

These observations are highly relevant because the social media tactics behind the electoral success of Donald Trump in the United States, such as using internet memes to delegitimise political opponents (see Ross and Rivers 2017) and capitalising on mainstream media’s attention to provocations, have been copied by campaign managers in Estonia. For instance, before the 2019 election, EKRE attracted young protest voters on social media with meme campaigns inspired by the visual aesthetic of video games. The rise of the style of politics that involves perpetual scandalising to hold public attention poses a challenge to news media. As a reaction to the massive circulation of predominantly emotional campaign messages and memes in social media, journalists in both traditional and online media in Estonia have stepped up their critical coverage of the campaign. Major dailies use their online platforms to carry out extensive interviews with pundits and invite candidates to debates on various policy issues. Voting

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advice applications (election compasses) have become a mainstay in pre-­ ­ election online media and are provided by both Estonian Public Broadcasting and commercial news portals.

Conclusion The trends of political campaigning in Estonia resemble those in other Western countries in several important respects. Advertising campaigns have grown more and more professional. Emphasis has been increasingly placed on entertainment/shock value as campaign managers and candidates copy tactics used by commercial enterprises and (populist) politicians in the West. Online campaigning has become a default, but traditional channels and face-to-face meetings have not lost their relevance (see Table 3.1). The development of the Estonian electoral system and campaigning since the first completely free elections in 1992 serve as a prime example of swift post-communist transformation of political culture brought about by radical reforms and the digitalisation of society. Estonia has modelled itself after neighbouring Nordic countries, opting for a strong civil society and a stable political environment which stays away from extremes. Democratic traditions have been firmly established in Estonia over the course of the past eight general election cycles. However, its young democracy is admittedly vulnerable to rampant commercialisation, manipulative social media campaigns, and the rise of right-wing populist factions. How to cultivate and sustain respectful and reasonable political debates in the face of widespread emotional ‘trolling’ and dishonest algorithmic manipulation for electoral gain on the Internet remains one of the biggest challenges for political communication in Estonian as well as in other modern democracies.

Departure from Yes the communist past, polarisation between ‘former’ and ‘new’ leaders, absence of the right-left dimension.

Proportional system with vote transfer: direct voting in districts for the party candidates in local lists, the votes below the quota needed for receiving a full number of mandates are transferred to the candidates included by the parties in their national ‘compensational mandates’ list. Threshold is 5%. Parties and NGOs allowed to present joint lists.

1992

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus (issues, candidates)

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 3.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Estonia

No

Foreign Domestic

(continued)

Traditional print advertising and posters, radio commercials, amateurish video clips on TV

Presence of Type of external advisors communication (foreign, domestic) (ads and media)

Different visions of Yes Estonia’s future. Character of market reforms, step-by-step vs. radical shock therapy. Issues of historical justice and restitution of nationalised properties. Land reform. Pension reform. Withdrawal of Soviet troops, ending of Soviet occupation.

Main campaign topics

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Strong Yes opposition between governmental coalition parties fighting for continuation of radical reforms and the so called ‘managerial parties’ representing former Soviet industrial and agricultural elites Newly (re) Yes organised neoliberal Reform Party’s confrontation with the leftist populist Centre Party

Same as previous

Same as previous except a ban on the associated inter-­ party list and the lists of NGOs.

1999

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

1995

Campaign focus (issues, candidates)

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 3.1 (continued)

Strong pressure to return to the path of radical reforms. Issues connected to security, membership in EU and NATO. International security (‘Russian threat’)

N/A

Yes

No

Foreign Domestic

(continued)

Extensive use of professional outdoor campaign materials, audio-visual and print commercials in all traditional media channels

Traditional print advertising and posters, radio commercials, more professional video clips on TV

Presence of Type of external advisors communication (foreign, domestic) (ads and media)

Negative campaign Yes against reforms, especially land reform and privatisation of enterprises to the foreign capital. Restitution of ownership rights on real estate. Situation of retired people and unemployment.

Main campaign topics

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Sudden rise of Yes the new populist Res Publica Party, strong right-left confrontation.

Voting in districts same as previous, but party lists are made open so that the final ranking of candidates depends on the received votes. National ‘compensational mandates’ lists remain closed, rankings are defined by parties’ inner selection process.

Yes

Issues Candidates

2003

Campaign focus (issues, candidates)

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 3.1 (continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

(continued)

Extensive use of professional outdoor campaign materials, enormous posters, dramatised audio-visual commercials on TV

Presence of Type of external advisors communication (foreign, domestic) (ads and media)

‘Law and order’, N/A corruption, ‘Estonian way’, Estonia’s accession to the EU and NATO

Main campaign topics

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Fierce Yes confrontation between the neoliberal Reform Party and populist centre-left Centre Party. Securitisation of the campaign agenda due to Kremlin’s hostile rhetoric towards the Baltic states.

Same as previous. The first Internet voting on national elections in Europe

Yes

Issues Candidates

2007

Campaign focus (issues, candidates)

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 3.1 (continued)

Economic growth after joining the EU and NATO. Reform party promises to rank Estonia among the five wealthiest countries in Europe by 2022

Main campaign topics

N/A

Yes

Foreign Domestic

(continued)

Ban on outdoor campaign during the official election campaign period. Audio-­ visual and print commercials on traditional media channels. Direct mailing. Increasing use of Internet during campaign.

Presence of Type of external advisors communication (foreign, domestic) (ads and media)

40  M. LAURISTIN AND S. HANSSON

Post-crisis campaign with comparatively low competitive spirit.

2011

Same as previous. Internet voting is acknowledged as a regular part of preliminary voting.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 3.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus (issues, candidates)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

(continued)

Ban on outdoor campaign during the official election campaign period. Focus on audio-visual commercials and direct mail materials. Increasing use of online-campaign and new media production (animation, video games, banners, blogs, etc.).

Presence of Type of external advisors communication (foreign, domestic) (ads and media)

Post-crisis social issues: N/A unemployment, child poverty, regional disparities. Shrinking population, growing emigration to Finland. Economic development after crisis. International security (‘Russian threat’).

Main campaign topics

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Campaign Yes influenced by generational renewal in the leadership of major parties. The established ‘cartel parties’ heavily criticised, expectations voiced for changes in the political landscape

Same as previous. Internet voting is a growing mode of preliminary voting.

Yes

Issues Candidates

2015

Campaign focus (issues, candidates)

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 3.1 (continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

(continued)

Ban on the outdoor campaign during the official pre-election campaign period. Increasing use of online-campaign and new media production. Special attention to social media campaigning, targeting younger voters, and door-to-door campaigning.

Presence of Type of external advisors communication (foreign, domestic) (ads and media)

Technological and N/A economic innovation, political reforms. Strong focus on population issues, family policy, social inequality.

Main campaign topics

42  M. LAURISTIN AND S. HANSSON

Incumbent leftist parties criticised by the neoliberal opposition. Conflict between ‘mainstream liberal politics’ and radical national conservatives.

2019

Same as previous. Internet voting has become the dominant mode of preliminary voting

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 3.1 (continued)

Yes

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus (issues, candidates)

Feasibility of the Estonian economic and social model, European integration and sovereignty of EU member states, mass migration, tolerance concerning ethnic and sexual minorities, rights of women.

Main campaign topics

N/A

Yes

Foreign Domestic

(continued)

Ban on outdoor campaign during the official election campaign period. Online campaigning prevails, the role of traditional print and broadcast media decreases.

Presence of Type of external advisors communication (foreign, domestic) (ads and media)

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Strictly regulated regular TV Yes debates on the public broadcaster covering all parties and main issues. Meetings, street activities, entertainment events (concerts, etc.). Strictly regulated TV debates on Yes the public broadcaster covering all parties and main issues. Meetings, road shows, street activities, entertainment events (concerts, etc.).

2003

2007

1999

Yes

Yes

Public discussions, meetings with the candidates, TV and radio debates Strictly regulated regular TV debates on the public broadcaster covering all parties and main issues

1995

Use of polling and research techniques?

Types of campaign activities

Year of election

Table 3.1 (continued) Free airtime on public media

Rising campaign No expenditures, no formal limits. Strengthened control measures of the sources for campaign funding Rising campaign No expenditures, no formal limits. Strengthened control measures of the sources for campaign funding Rising campaign No expenditures, no formal limits. Full disclosure and strict control of the sources for campaign funding

Low budget campaigns, no Yes formal limits

Campaign spending limits

(continued)

Yes (radio, commercial TV)

Yes (radio, commercial TV)

Yes (radio, commercial TV

Yes (radio, commercial TV)

Possibility to buy airtime

44  M. LAURISTIN AND S. HANSSON

2019

2015

Strictly regulated TV debates on Yes the public broadcaster covering all parties and main issues. Talk shows on commercial media. Meetings, street activities, entertainment events (concerts, etc.). Debates in public broadcasting and Yes talk shows in commercial TV. Debates transmitted via online news portals. Social media is involved in organisation of the public meetings, road shows, street activities, entertainment events Debates in various public spaces Yes and in the media.Social media is used for organising public rallies.

2011

Use of polling and research techniques?

Types of campaign activities

Year of election

Table 3.1 (continued) Free airtime on public media

Rising campaign No expenditures, no formal limits. Full disclosure and strict control of the sources for campaign funding

Rising campaign No expenditures, no formal limits. Full disclosure and strict control of the sources for campaign funding

Rising campaign No expenditures, no formal limits. Full disclosure and strict control of the sources for campaign funding

Campaign spending limits

Yes (radio, commercial TV)

Yes (radio, commercial TV)

Yes (radio, commercial TV)

Possibility to buy airtime

3 ESTONIA 

45

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References Advertising Act. https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/Riigikogu/act/52401 2019003/consolide. Alvarez, R.  Michael, Thad E.  Hall, and Alexander H.  Trechsel. 2009. Internet Voting in Comparative Perspective: The Case of Estonia. PS: Political Science & Politics 42 (3): 497–505. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096509090787. Auers, Daunis, and Andres Kasekamp. 2013. Comparing Radical-Right Populism in Estonia and Latvia. In Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse, ed. Ruth Woda, Majid KhosraviNik, and Brigitte Mral, 235–248. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Brüggemann, Karsten, and Andres Kasekamp. 2008. The Politics of History and the ‘War of Monuments’ in Estonia. Nationalities Papers 36 (3): 425–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905990802080646. e-Governance Academy. 2011. Estonian Parliament Elections 2011: Analysis of Online Campaigns. https://ega.ee/publication/analysis-of-online-campaigns/. Accessed 20 June 2019. Ehala, Martin. 2009. The Bronze Soldier: Identity Threat and Maintenance in Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies 40 (1): 139–158. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/01629770902722294. Engesser, Sven, Nicole Ernst, Frank Esser, and Floria Büchel. 2017. Populism and Social Media: How Politicians Spread a Fragmented Ideology. Information, Communication & Society 20 (8): 1109–1126. https://doi.org/10.1080/136 9118X.2016.1207697. Karpf, David. 2017. Digital Politics After Trump. Annals of the International Communication Association 41 (2): 198–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/238 08985.2017.1316675. Kasekamp, Andres, Lari-Liis Madisson, and Louis Wierenga. 2019. Discursive Opportunities for the Estonian Populist Radical Right in a Digital Society. Problems of Post-Communism 66 (1): 47–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/1075 8216.2018.1445973. Krämer, Benjamin. 2017. Populist Online Practices: The Function of the Internet in Right-Wing Populism. Information, Communication & Society 20 (9): 1293–1309. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1328520. Lauristin, Marju, and Peeter Vihalemm. 2009. The Political Agenda During Different Periods of Estonian Transformation: External and Internal Factors. Journal of Baltic Studies 40 (1): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/01629 770902722237. Media Services Act. https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/511012019003/consolide. Accessed 20 June 2019.

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Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Norocel, Ov Cristian, and Gabriella Szabó. 2019. Mapping the Discursive Opportunities for Radical-Right Populist Politics Across Eastern Europe. Problems of Post-Communism 66 (1): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/107582 16.2019.1537040. OSCE/ODIHR. 2011. Estonia. Parliamentary Elections. Election Assessment Mission Final Report, March 6. https://www.osce.org/et/odihr/81813. Accessed 20 June 2019. Political Parties Act. https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/513042015011/ consolide/current. Accessed 20 June 2019. Reporters Without Borders. 2019. Ranking 2019. https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2019. Accessed 20 June 2019. Riigikogu Election Act. https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/502012019007/ consolide. Accessed 20 June 2019. Ross, Andrew S., and Damien J.  Rivers. 2017. Digital Cultures of Political Participation: Internet Memes and the Discursive Delegitimization of the 2016 US Presidential Candidates. Discourse, Context & Media 16: 1–11. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2017.01.001. Selg, Peeter. 2013. A Political-Semiotic Introduction to the Estonian “Bronze-­ Night” Discourse. Journal of Language & Politics 12 (1): 80–100. https:// doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.1.04sel. Sikk, Allan. 2012. Newness as a Winning Formula for New Political Parties. Party Politics 18 (4): 465–486. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068810389631. Solvak, Mikhel, and Vello Pettai. 2008. The Parliamentary Elections in Estonia, March 2007. Electoral Studies 27 (3): 574–577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. electstud.2008.01.004. Taagepera, Rein. 2006. Meteoric Trajectory: The Res Publica Party in Estonia. Democratisation 13 (1): 78–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/1351034050 0378274. Tavits, Margit. 2010. Effect of Local Ties on Electoral Success and Parliamentary Behaviour: The Case of Estonia. Party Politics 16 (2): 215–235. https://doi. org/10.1177/1354068809341053. Tigasson, Külli-Riin. 2009. Strategic Miscalculations: Election Campaigns to the European Parliament in Estonia 2004. Journal of Political Marketing 8 (1): 46–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377850802605908. Trumm, Siim. 2016. What Does It Take to Get Elected in a Post-communist Democracy? Explaining the Success and Failure of Parliamentary Candidates in Estonia. East European Politics and Societies 30 (1): 169–188. https://doi. org/10.1177/0888325415577862.

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———. 2018. The ‘New’ Wave of Populist Right-Wing Parties in Central and Eastern Europe: Explaining Electoral Support for the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia. Representation 54 (4): 331–347. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00344893.2018.1539028. Vassil, Kristjan, Mihkel Solvak, Priit Vinkel, Alexander H. Trechsel, and R. Michael Alvarez. 2016. The Diffusion of Internet Voting. Usage Patterns of Internet Voting in Estonia Between 2005 and 2015. Government Information Quarterly 33 (3): 453–459. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.007. Vihalemm, Triin, Jānis Juzefovičs, and Marianne Leppik. 2019. Identity and Media-Use Strategies of the Estonian and Latvian Russian-Speaking Populations Amid Political Crisis. Europe-Asia Studies 71 (1): 48–70. https://doi.org/10. 1080/09668136.2018.1533916. Wodak, Ruth. 2015. The Politics of Fear: What Right Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage. Wodak, Ruth, Majid KhosraviNik, and Brigitte Mral, eds. 2013. Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse. London: Bloomsbury.

CHAPTER 4

Latvia Ieva Bērziņa

Country Overview Latvia is a democratic and parliamentary republic which was established in 1918, occupied by the USSR in 1940, and regained its independence in 1991. According to the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia (Satversme), legislative power belongs to parliament (Saeima), which is the central state authority. The Saeima is ‘composed of one hundred representatives of the people’ and ‘elected in general, equal, and direct elections, and by secret ballot based on proportional representation’ (The Constitution of the Republic of Latvia 1922). The Saeima is elected for a period of four years. During its restored independence, nine parliamentary elections have taken place since 1993.1 In the context of the restoration of Latvia’s independence, the elections to the Supreme Council of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR) in 1990 are also 1  In 2011, a referendum was held on the dismissal of the Saeima before its expiry. Therefore, in 2011, the parliamentary elections took place one year after the previous one.

I. Bērziņa (*) National Defence Academy of Latvia, Riga, Latvia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_4

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I. BĒRZIŅA

important because it was a historical moment when true political competition was renewed. Latvian citizens also vote for local governments which are elected once every four years. Since 2004, when Latvia joined the European Union, EU Parliament elections are held every fifth year. Latvian citizens also have had a possibility to vote in several referendums on such issues as the state language, participation in the European Union, and the dismissal of the Saeima. A proportional electoral system was used in Latvia before the Soviet occupation and it was restored after the renewal of independence with several amendments, such as a lowered voting age, prohibition against electing persons who have cooperated with the security services of the USSR or were members of the Communist Party after 13 January 1991, a four per cent and later five per cent threshold to reduce the fragmentation of parliament  (Table  4.1), and others (Millard 2011). There have been public debates about further improvements to Latvia’s electoral system and even the need to implement a majoritarian electoral system (Jundzis 2012), but such ideas did not have enough political support. Members of the Saeima are elected from five electoral regions and the number of seats from every region is distributed according to the number of voters. Voters choose one party ballot and have the opportunity to express their attitude toward individual candidates by using plus and minus signs. There is a multi-party system in Latvia which has several weaknesses with implications for the political process in general and political campaigning specifically. The expert group on governance improvement distinguishes six major issues with Latvia’s party system: low public trust, low participation, fragmentation, and instability in the sense that new parties are emerging and existing ones regroup or cease to exist, unclear ideological orientations, dependency on private sponsors and state capture risk, and a deficit of internal party democracy (Valsts prezidenta kanceleja 2015, 70). On average, around sixteen parties or party associations have been competing for seats in the Saeima in each election since the breakdown of the USSR. Despite a large number of political parties, Latvia stands out with the smallest amount of party membership in Europe (Van Biezen et  al. 2012, 28). Latvia has almost four times less the number of party members as a percentage of the population in comparison with other Baltic States—this figure is 4.3% in Estonia, 4.1% in Lithuania, and 1.1% in Latvia (Klūga 2018). At a societal level, Latvia’s political landscape, including political campaigns, is largely affected by its ethnic structure and the specifics of its

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formation. According to the Population and Housing Census in 2011, 37.2% of Latvian society uses the Russian language at home (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 2011), making Latvia a country with one of the largest proportions of Russian speakers in the world. The proportion of ethnic Latvians significantly decreased in Latvia during the Soviet occupation. Ethnic Latvians accounted for 75.5% of the total population in 1935, whereas in 1989 this number had dropped to 52% (Mezgailis 1998). After the renewal of Latvia’s independence, citizenship was granted only to Latvia’s pre-war citizens and their ancestors. Therefore, most of the people who immigrated to Latvia during the Soviet occupation could get Latvian citizenship in the naturalisation process which began in 1995. As this group mostly consisted of ethnic Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and other ethnic minorities, ethnic and citizenship issues are closely linked in Latvia. This has been one of the most important problems in Latvian politics throughout the period of renewed independence, despite the fact that the number of non-citizens in Latvia has decreased from 29% in 1995 to 11% in 2018 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia n.d.).

Legal Framework The Pre-election Campaign Law2 (2013) and the Law on Financing of Political Organizations (Parties) (1995) are two basic documents which regulate political campaigns in Latvia. The regulation of political campaigns has developed throughout the period of renewed independence with increasing restrictions and transparency. Some of the most significant changes took place in 2002 when the maximum amount of donations was reduced, in 2004 when the maximum amount of election spending was set (Ikstens 2005), and in 2010 when it was determined that beginning in 2012 political parties and organisations would be granted state budget funding (Šaboha 2012). Political parties in Latvia are provided free airtime on public media. According to the campaign law (2013): ‘[D]eputy candidates who are in the list of deputy candidates of the same title have the right before the elections of the Saeima, European Parliament, and elections of local governments to use State-ensured free of charge broadcasting time for elec2  In Latvia, the election campaign is known as the pre-election campaign. However, we refer to it as the election campaign throughout the chapter and book.

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tion campaigns in the first television and radio programmes of public electronic mass media four times for five minutes in the period from the 25th day until the penultimate day before election day.’ Free airtime is shorter if the Saeima is dissolved or recalled: ‘two times for five minutes in the period from the seventh day until the penultimate day before election day’ (Pre-election Campaign Law 2013). Parties are free to decide which deputy candidates and how they will use their free airtime. The campaign law (2013) also determines that ‘the lists of deputy candidates submitted for elections have the right to participate at least once in the [election] broadcasts on television programmes of electronic mass media within the framework of public remit.’ In addition to free broadcasting time in electronic mass media, parties are free to buy advertising in any media, outdoor or on the Internet, as well as use direct marketing, and others  (Table  4.1). The Law on Financing of Political Organizations (Parties) sets restrictions on the amount of election expenses. They are calculated from the monthly average gross work remuneration for the year before last published by the Central Statistical Bureau which is approximated in euros; a coefficient of 0.0004 for the Saeima (in case of dismissal, the coefficient is 0.0003) and local government council elections, and a coefficient of 0.0003 for European Parliament elections; and the number of voters in the previous Saeima elections, electoral district, or local government council (The Law on Financing of Political Organizations (Parties) 1995). For example, the expenses of parties and party unions should not have exceeded EUR 533,347.95 for the campaign across Latvia during the 2018 Saeima elections (The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau 2017). The election campaign law (2013) states that the election period is from the 120th day before the elections until election day (if the Saeima, a city council, or municipality is dissolved or recalled, the election period is from the day the elections are announced until election day). This law also prohibits the incorporation of ‘the results of public opinion polls on the popularity of political parties, an association of political parties, voters association, or individual deputy candidates in broadcasts of electronic mass media on election day’. On election day, as well as thirty days before election day, the placement of election campaign material in television programmes of electronic media is prohibited. It is also forbidden to use administrative resources in election campaigning.

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Historical Overview of Campaigns Political competition in Latvia was gradually renewed after 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and launched political and economic reforms called Perestroika. It contributed to the liberalisation of political discourse in Latvia and the emergence of nationalist and pro-democracy political organisations aimed at the restoration of Latvia’s independence. Elections for the Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR took place on 18 March 1990. Electoral turnout was 81.3 per cent and the Popular Front of Latvia, which was the largest and most influential pro-democracy and pro-­independence movement, won the elections with two-thirds of the 201 mandates (Ciganovs 2015). On 4 May 1990, the Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR adopted the declaration ‘On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia’. The de facto independence of Latvia was achieved on 21 August 1991 after an unsuccessful Soviet coup d’état attempt. During the period before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the structural foundations of political competition in Latvia were laid because in reaction to the establishment of the Popular Front of Latvia in 1988, the International Front of the Working People of Latvia (Interfront) was established in 1989. It was mainly formed by ethnicities other than Latvian who supported the preservation of the USSR and fought against the restoration of Latvian independence. The boundary between the Popular Front and Interfront is symbolically preserved throughout the period of independence and marks the competing geopolitical orientations toward the West (Latvia’s membership in the European Union and NATO), the East (closer ties with Russia), and ethnic cleavage (Table 4.1). ‘The red line’ is the term being used recently in Latvian political discourse to denote the idea of preventing political forces considered to be pro-Russian, in terms of geopolitical orientation, from coming to power (by forming government). Thus, despite significant fragmentation of the party system after the renewal of independence, political parties are grouped around this geopolitical orientation in public discourse. This has created very specific circumstances for political competition in Latvia because it is associated with an existential threat to Latvia’s sovereignty instead of a normal change of power between government and opposition forces.3 As it was identified by 3  The highlighted problem of Russia’s involvement in the Brexit referendum, elections in the United States, and other political processes in the West provide evidence that there is indeed a basis for concern that internal political processes may be used for the achievement of the political goals of outside forces.

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Anna Grzymala-Busse (2007, 77–78): ‘Instead of a clear division of elites through a communist reinvention, a “merged elite” (reformed communists, former communists, noncommunists, and émigré Latvians) has wielded political power since 1991. All of the governments after the communist collapse have been anti-communist, nationalist coalitions, which excluded a priori the participation of the main opposition party, the pro-­ Russian PCTVL (which held as many as nineteen percent of seats).’ This also resulted in lack of a clear ideological differentiation in the party system as it is mainly based on only one dimension in Latvia—ethnic identity (Auers and Ikstens 2007, 48). This largely determines the content of political campaigns and lowers the overall quality of political debate because political parties have no stimulus to compete in such dimensions as the economy, social security, public administration, and so forth. The first parliamentary elections after the renewal of independence took place in Latvia in 1993, and since then political campaigning has developed as a professional activity. Elections in a democratic system were a new phenomenon for Latvian politicians, therefore training in political campaign organising provided by Western pro-democracy non-­ governmental organisations was a significant contribution to the democratisation of Latvia  (Table  4.1). A politician who was a member of Interfront before the renewal of Latvia’s independence recalls: ‘I did not attend seminars organised by Western non-governmental organisations because they were rather selective. The Americans worked closely with the People’s Front, but no one worked with the International Front’ (Dmitričenko 2011, 132). This provides evidence that Western support in the area of political campaigning was a targeted education of pro-­ democracy forces so that a return to communism wouldn’t take place. Eventually Russian know-how of political campaigning, which developed under conditions of increasing authoritarianism, also entered Latvia. Nevertheless, the use of foreign political campaigning approaches in Latvia is limited due to the specific features of Latvia’s political campaigning environment which is characterised by weak political parties, limited understanding of political processes in society in general, and the low quality of political journalism (Bērziņa 2016). Latvian political campaigning experts mention some examples from the 2006 and 2010 parliamentary elections as an effective application of the Western political campaigning approach with a clearly defined audience, a focused and well-presented political offering or selling of past achievements, and the positive qualities of party leaders (Dmitričenko 2011,

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145). However, this is not a dominant trend in the Latvian political campaigning environment. One of the differences between campaigning in Latvia and the West is that political parties tend to lose their connection with voters right after the elections, whereas in the West, parties tend to use the principle of permanent campaigning. As was admitted by a foreign expert with good knowledge of the Latvian political environment: ‘When it comes to public relations during the election period, significant progress has been made in Latvia. All the new media that have developed over the last five years have also reached Latvia, and political parties are using these new techniques in a pretty good way, including facebook.com, draugiem. lv and other solutions. However, in terms of customer relationship management, which is common sense in European political parties, Latvia’s political parties are still far behind other European countries’ (Dmitričenko 2011, 145). Latvian political parties have also tried to apply certain Western-style political campaigning methods but there are limitations to their use in Latvia. One of the tools being used is political entertainment events, but experts are sceptical about their effectiveness since Latvian society has a different political culture (Dmitričenko 2011, 144).4 Another widely used political method in the West is door-to-door campaigning, which is not very developed in Latvia. From the experience of the politician, many people do not open their doors due to its criminogenic potential (relating to the period of the 1990s) or are very negative towards campaigners (Dmitričenko 2011, 146). Nevertheless, there are differences between Latvian and Russian speakers because this technique was successfully used by the party Harmony Centre in targeting Russian speakers (Dmitričenko 2011, 146). Negative campaigning was used since  the second parliamentary elections after the restoration of independence in Latvia (Table 4.1). One of the first and later widespread techniques used was the publication of printed materials with negative information about competitors. Sometimes these publications are anonymous, therefore it is difficult to know whose interests the distribution of such materials are serving. For example, in 4  An outstanding example was the show organised by Latvia’s First Party/Latvian Way candidate Ainars Šlesers for mayor of Riga in 2009. It was a show with popular musicians, free energy drinks, and other attractions; at the culmination of the event, the candidate was symbolically lifted in the air with a crane (LETA 2009). However, the party only obtained twelve mandates out of sixty on the Riga City Council (Central Election Commission 2009), and today the party no longer exists.

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2002 police detained the executive of the party Latvian Way and confiscated forty thousand leaflets with negative information about the People’s Party (TP) which were left in a car nearby the Latvian Way party office. Latvian Way denied the allegations and reframed it as a provocation by the People’s Party since there was no direct evidence as to who had ordered the production of the leaflet (BNS 2002). The practice of negative campaigning in Latvia is to some extent inspired by so-called ‘black PR’ in Russia (Ledeneva 2006, 28–57), but the experienced politician admits that such methods have limited effects due to the mentality of Latvian society: ‘There are very harsh methods in Russia, there is a lot of black PR, up to physical attacks … . There were such attempts in Latvia … but it didn’t work, it made it even worse … because our people are actually fairly honest and want to live with their conscience more or less, so these [methods] are being applied in a much narrower scale than in Russia. [In Russia] You can do anything’ (Dmitričenko 2011, 149). Positivism campaigns are an outstanding phenomenon in Latvian political campaigning history. They took place in the 2006 parliamentary elections (Table 4.1) because they were the first parliamentary elections after the introduction of campaign spending limits. In order to overcome the limits of campaign spending, two political parties Latvia’s First Party/ Latvian Way and the People’s Party used non-governmental organisations to coordinate campaigns in parallel with the paid-party advertising, praising the performance and good qualities of the party politicians. The election results were challenged in court, which decided not to cancel the election results but to include the expenses of positivism campaigns in the political campaign budgets of the parties. As a result, the People’s Party exceeded the permitted 279,053 lats (the local currency before Latvia joined the Eurozone) by 1,027,366.67 lats (Delna 2008), which led to the liquidation of the party.

Recent Trends Since the renewal of independence, Latvia has experienced large emigration from the country, and as a result of which, Latvia’s population has decreased by 457 thousand citizens (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia n.d.). Latvia’s large overseas population forms a specific electorate which was specifically targeted during the recent parliamentary elections. Throughout the 2018 parliamentary elections, the representatives of twelve Latvian political parties went to Leicester, United Kingdom for

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election debates. For the first time in history, Latvian Television provided live media broadcasts of election debates in the United Kingdom (Eiropas latviešu apvienība 2018). During these elections, the Latvian diaspora elected four members of parliament—twice as many as previous elections (Plauka 2018). The rise of populism is a recent trend in Latvian politics as well as in other democratic countries. There are several political parties in Latvia which may be regarded as populist. However, a noteworthy case is Latvian politician Artuss Kaimins, who gained popularity with his YouTube broadcasts Suņubūda (Doghouse) in which he conducted interviews with politicians in an aggressive style that often violated the boundaries of common courtesy. He is now a leader of the party called Who Owns the State?, which won sixteen seats in the Saeima in 2018 and has three ministers (Economics, Interior, and Welfare). Along with the increasing role of social media as a communication channel, Latvian political parties have gradually begun to use them in political campaigning. The share of online expenses has been increasing in overall political campaigning expenses during recent elections (Krūtaine 2018). Therefore, Latvia is also concerned about issues of political campaign regulations in social media. This is considered to be the main challenge in the area of political corruption because it is not yet clear how to monitor election expenses in social media registered abroad (Balode 2017). It is also an issue of national security because social media has been used as an instrument of foreign involvement in local political processes (Krūtaine 2018).

Conclusion The foundations of political campaigning in Latvia were laid in the process of the renewal of independence when pro-democracy, pro-independence, and nationalist political organisations were formed. The historical opposition between the Popular Front and Interfront has remained a symbolic division line in Latvian politics, which marks the heightened but justified concern for the preservation of Latvia’s independence. Political processes in Latvia are largely affected by its ethnic structure and the influence of Russia, which twine together geopolitical and internal issues that complicate democratisation processes in Latvia. As a result of the specific ethnic structure, the ideological differentiation in Latvia has taken place mainly in the ethnic dimension, reducing the

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importance of issues such as the economy, social security, public administration, and others in Latvian political discourse. This negatively affects the general development of the state because political parties do not have enough stimulus to compete over the best solutions to improve the living conditions of Latvian society since they tend to exploit ethnic issues in political campaigns. In terms of political campaigning techniques in Latvia, all of the same trends are observed in other countries around the world: the use of different media and campaigning tools adapted to the specifics of the local political culture (Table 4.1). Latvia has also experienced global issues such as the rise of populism, difficulties in subjecting social media to local political campaigning regulations, and concern over foreign meddling in elections. Political campaign constraints have gradually become more intense and are aimed at increasing transparency and decreasing dependency on party sponsors.

2006

2002

1998

1995

Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation, Threshold of 4%. celebrities as political party candidates. Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation, Threshold of 5%. celebrities as political party candidates. Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation, Threshold of 5%. celebrities as political party candidates. Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation, Threshold of 5%. celebrities as political party candidates. Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation, Threshold of 5%. celebrities as political party candidates.

1993

Basic campaign characteristics

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 4.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Latvia

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Corruption and state capture, ethnic issues, withdrawal of Russian troops, economic prosperity, social justice. Corruption and state capture, ethnic issues, Latvia’s EU and NATO membership, economic prosperity, social justice. Corruption and state capture, ethnic issues, Latvia’s EU and NATO membership, economic prosperity, social justice. Corruption and state capture, ethnic issues, Latvia’s EU and NATO membership, economic prosperity, social justice. Corruption and state capture, ethnic issues, economic prosperity, social justice.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation. Threshold of 5%.

2018

2014

2011

Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation, Threshold of 5%. celebrities as political party candidates. Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation, Threshold of 5%. celebrities as political party candidates. Proportional Ethnic cleavage, system. geopolitical orientation. Threshold of 5%.

2010

Basic campaign characteristics

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 4.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Yes

Yes

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Corruption and state capture, Yes ethnic issues, national security in the aftermath of Crimea annexation, economic prosperity, social justice. Corruption and state capture, Yes ethnic issues, economic prosperity, social justice.

Corruption and state capture, ethnic issues, economic prosperity, social justice.

Corruption and state capture, ethnic issues, economic prosperity, social justice.

Main campaign topics

60  I. BĒRZIŅA

2018

2014

2011

2010

2006

2002

1998

1995

Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations, black PR, political debates. Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations, political debates.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations. Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations, political debates, black PR. Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations, political debates. Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations, black PR, political debates. Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations, political debates, ‘positivism campaigns’. Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations, black PR, political debates. Meetings with voters, advertising, public relations, political debates.

1993

Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press and electronic media. Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press and electronic media. Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press and electronic media Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press, electronic media, and the Internet. Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press, electronic media, and the Internet Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press, electronic media, and the Internet Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press, electronic media, and the Internet Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press, electronic media, and the Internet Billboards, leaflets, ads in the press, electronic media, and the Internet

Use of Campaign Free Possibility Notes polling spending airtime to buy and limits on airtime research public techniques? media

Year of Type of communication (ads and Types of campaign activities election media)

Table 4.1 (continued)

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References Auers, Daunis, and Janis Ikstens. 2007. Politisko partiju loma dmeokrātijā. In Cik demokrātiska ir Latvija? Demokrātijas monitorings 2005–2007, ed. Juris Rozenvalds, 45–48. Rīga: Zinātne. Balode, Linda. 2017. Šodienas un nākotnes izaicinājumi cīņā pret politisko korupciju. Latvijas Vēstnesis. https://lvportals.lv/norises/290702-sodienas-unnakotnes-izaicinajumi-cina-pret-politisko-korupciju-2017. Accessed 20 June 2019. Bērziņa, Ieva. 2016. Political Campaigning Environments in Latvia: From a Global to a Local Perspective. Journal of Political Marketing 15 (2–3): 196–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2016.1151120. BNS. 2002. LC: skrejlapu skandāls – TP provokācija. Delfi.lv. https://www.delfi. lv/news/national/politics/lc-skrejlapu-skandals-tp-provokacija.d?id= 4001559. Accessed 20 June 2019. Central Election Commission. 2009. Local Election Results. Riga. https://www. cvk.lv/cgi-bin/wdbcgiw/cvk/pv2009.pv09_rezultati.vis. Accessed 20 June 2019. Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia. 2011. Distribution of Population by Statistical Regions, Republic Cities and Counties According to the Most Commonly Used Languages at Home on March 1, 2011. http://data1.csb.gov.lv/ sq/22441. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. n.d. Immigration, Emmigration and Net Migration. https://www.csb. gov.lv/en/statistics/statistics-by-theme/population/migration/key-indicator/immigration-emmigration-and-net-migration. Accessed 20 June 2019. Ciganovs, Juris. 2015. 4. maijs  – valsts otrā dzimšanas diena. Sargs.lv. http:// www.sargs.lv/Vesture/Vesture/2015/06/04-01.aspx#lastcomment. Accessed 20 June 2019. The Constitution of the Republic of Latvia. 1922. Legal Acts of the Republic of Latvia. https://likumi.lv/ta/en/en/id/57980. Accessed 20 June 2019. The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau. 2017. Informatīvais paziņojums par priekšvēlēšanu izdevumu apmēru, kādu drīkst izlietot 2018. gada 6.oktobra vēlēšanām. https://www.knab.gov.lv/lv/finances/campaigning/information/531715-informativais_pazinojums_par_prieksvelesanu_izdevumu_apmeru_kadu_drikst_izlietot_2018_gada_6_oktobra_velesanam.html. Accessed 20 June 2019. Delna. 2008. Delna 7.oktobrī piedāvā ‘Retrospekciju: 9.Saeimas pozitīvisma kampaņas smagā piezemēšanās’. http://delna.lv/lv/2008/10/02/delna_ 7oktobri_piedava_%E2%80%9Eretrospekciju_9saeimas_pozitivisma_kampanas_smaga_piezemesanas/. Accessed 20 June 2019. Dmitričenko, Ieva. 2011. Rietumu politiskās konsultēšanas tehnikas un postpadomju polittehnoloģijas politiskajās kampaņās Latvijā. PhD diss., Latvijas

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Universitate. https://www.szf.lu.lv/fileadmin/user_upload/szf_faili/Petnieciba/ promocijas_darbi/Ieva_Dmitricenko.pdf. Accessed 20 June 2019. Eiropas latviešu apvienība. 2018. Turpinot kampaņu novados, politiķi dosies uz priekšvēlēšanu debatēm pie diasporas Lielbritānijā. Latvijas Vēstnesis. https:// lvportals.lv/dienaskartiba/298244-turpinot-kampanu-novados-politikidosies-uz-prieksvelesanu-debatem-pie-diasporas-lielbritanija-2018. Accessed 20 June 2019. Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2007. Rebuilding Leviathan: Party Competition and State Exploitation in Post-Communist Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ikstens, Janis. 2005. Priekšvēlēšanu kampaņu regulējums Latvijā. Providus.lv. http://providus.lv/article/prieksvelesanu-kampanu-regulejums-latvija. Accessed 20 June 2019. Jundzis, Talavs. 2012. Vēlēšanu sistēma Latvijā un Taivānā: salīdzinoša analīze. Latvijas Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis 66 (4): 4–13. Klūga, Māris. 2018. Latvijā partijās daudzkārt mazāk biedru nekā Lietuvā un Igaunijā. Kāpēc tā? Lsm.lv. https://www.lsm.lv/raksts/zinas/latvija/latvijapartijas-daudzkart-mazak-biedru-neka-lietuva-un-igaunija.-kapec-ta. a262825/. Accessed 20 June 2019. Krūtaine, Aija. 2018. Vēlēšanu kampaņas melnais caurums. Re:Baltica. https:// rebaltica.lv/2018/02/velesanu-kampanas-melnais-caurums/. Accessed 20 June 2019. Ledeneva, Alena V. 2006. How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business. New York: Cornell University. LETA. 2009. Šlesers ‘paceļasdebesīs’ unuzsauckatarsesdzērienus. TV Net. https:// www.tvnet.lv/5617515/slesers-pacelas-debesis-un-uzsauc-katarses-dzerienus. Accessed 20 June 2019. Mezgailis, Bruno. 1998. Latvija, un pusgadsimtu garais migrācijas vilnis. Latvijas Vēstnesis. https://www.vestnesis.lv/ta/id/48450. Accessed 20 June 2019. Millard, Frances. 2011. Electoral-System Change in Latvia and the Elections of 2010. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 44 (4): 309–318. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2011.10.002. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia. n.d. Naturalization. https:// www.mfa.gov.lv/en/policy/society-integration/citizenship/naturalisation. Accessed 20 June 2019. Law on Financing of Political Organizations (Parties). 1995. Legal Acts of the Republic of Latvia. https://likumi.lv/ta/en/en/id/36189. Accessed 20 June 2019. Plauka, Jolanta. 2018. Salīdzinot vēlēšanu rezultātus diasporas vidū, iezīmējas vairākas interesantas tendencies. Diena. https://www.diena.lv/raksts/latvija/ politika/salidzinot-velesanu-rezultatus-diasporas-vidu-iezimejas-vairakas-interesantas-tendences-14207430. Accessed 20 June 2019.

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Pre-election Campaign Law. 2013. Legal Acts of the Republic of Latvia. https:// likumi.lv/ta/en/en/id/253543. Accessed 20 June 2019. Šaboha, Inta. 2012. Partiju finansēšana no valsts budžeta līdzekļiem. Latvijas Vēstnesis. https://lvportals.lv/skaidrojumi/242843-partiju-finansesana-novalsts-budzeta-lidzekliem-2012. Accessed 20 June 2019. Valsts prezidenta kanceleja. 2015. Priekšlikumi Latvijas publiskās varas pilnveidošanai: Ekspertu grupas pārvaldības pilnveidei materiāli. Rīga: Latvijas Vēstnesis. Van Biezen, Ingrid, Petrer Mair, and Thomas Poguntke. 2012. Going, Going, … Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe. European Journal of Political Research 51 (1): 24–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1475-6765.2011.01995.x.

CHAPTER 5

Lithuania Ingrida Unikaite ̇-Jakuntavičiene ̇

Country Overview Lithuania is a democratic parliamentary republic with elements of a semi-­ presidential republic. The Seimas is a unicameral parliament with 141 members who are elected to a four-year term (The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania 1992). The electoral system of parliamentary elections is mixed: seventy seats are elected by proportional representation in one multi-member district and the remaining seventy-one are elected in separate constituencies (single-member districts or SMDs). In order to win proportional representation seats, party lists and coalitions must surpass thresholds of five and seven per cent, respectively. In the SMDs, if no candidate wins more than fifty per cent of the first-round votes, a second-­ round takes place. The mixed member proportional electoral system determines the electoral campaign format in both districts. ‘Parties are the central players in electoral campaigns, but individual candidates are equally important, especially when competing in the SMDs. Lithuanians are more likely to trust leaders and personalities instead of parties. This tendency is noticeable from the results of public opinion polls and SMD election I. Unikaitė-Jakuntavičienė (*) Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Latvia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_5

65

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results.’ (Unikaitė 2008, 33) It is very common to vote for one party in the proportional representation system but to vote for a candidate from another party or an independent candidate in the SMD. Lithuania’s mixed electoral system introduces two types of electoral campaigns: party oriented and candidate centred. An historical overview of electoral results and the main political parties participating in parliamentary elections indicates that in the period 1990– 2016, the Social Democratic Party (LSDP or Social Democrats) and the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD or Conservatives) have dominated Lithuanian politics and formed governing coalitions interchangeably. Lithuania’s founding parliamentary election in 1990 was based on the inherited Soviet majority system of representation. The pro-independence popular movement Sąjūdis won in these elections. However, after the elections, members of the movement had many internal disagreements which led to the fragmentation of the parliamentary majority and the loss of the 1992 election to the ex-communist Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania (LDDP). In the 1996 election, the TS-LKD, which was founded by former Sąjūdis leaders, received just one seat less than that required to form an absolute parliamentary majority and formed a governing coalition with the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party (LKDP)—the two parties later merged in 2008. Since the 2000 elections, each parliamentary election has produced political ‘newcomers’—new parties receiving rather large support from the electorate. Party politics has slowly become more multipolar, with broader ruling coalitions than during the first decade. In 2000, the LDDP merged with the Social Democrats as the LSDP and won thirty per cent of seats in the election; however, two new parties, the Liberal Union of Lithuania (LLS) and the Social Liberals (NS), succeeded in forming a left-of-centre governing coalition. Two new parties, the Labour Party (DP) and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP, and later changed to Order and Justice— PTT), again appeared in the 2004 elections. They, together with the Union of Peasant and New Democracy Parties, won half of the parliamentary seats. The election winner was the Labour Party, receiving thirty-nine mandates. The second party according to the number of mandates was TS-LKD, staying in opposition. After negotiations, a ruling coalition was formed by DP, having a twenty-eight per cent share of the Seimas—the Social Democrats had twenty mandates, the Peasants had ten mandates, and the Liberal and Centre Union (LiCS) had eighteen mandates.

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In the 2008 elections, TS-LKD took a leading role in the formation of the right-of-centre government. They worked together with two small liberal parties and the populist National Resurrection Party, a new party created mainly by television stars, actors, and singers. The 2012 elections were again successful for the Social Democrats, who formed a government with the Labour Party and Order and Justice. In the most recent 2016 elections, the Lithuanian Farmers and Green Union (LVŽS) won a large number of mandates (forty-one per cent) by criticising the traditional parties and introducing ‘professional’ non-party members to their party election lists. This party has formed a left-of-centre coalition with a faction of the Social Democrats, leaving the Conservatives in opposition. As M.  Jurkynas (2017, 48) argues, the seventh regular Lithuanian parliamentary election signalled a move from an even party system to a dominant party configuration. Voter volatility in the multimember constituency rose but party fragmentation decreased. The Social Democrats and the Conservatives, the dominant political forces between 1990 and 2016, lost their former influence after the last parliamentary elections. However, we could expect the Conservatives to possibly regain their influence in the next elections. They still have thirty-one seats in the parliament and are the second strongest party. Over the last two years, they have been competing with the governing LVŽS for first place in the public opinion polls. The presidential term of office is five years in Lithuania. The president is elected by all citizens of Lithuania who are over eighteen years of age. The president can be elected for no more than two consecutive terms. Currently, Lithuania is led by the seventh head of state after the restoration of independence and the first woman president, Dalia Grybauskaitė. Presidential election campaigns are usually more candidate-centred and use the same technologies as parliamentary campaigns.

Legal Framework Several election laws, including the Law on Elections to the Seimas, have regulated political campaigns in Lithuania from 1990 to the present. In 2004, special legislation called the Law on Funding, and Control over Funding, of Political Parties and Political Campaigns was introduced, bringing some new elements to the administration of parties and campaign finance. It explained which donations are prohibited and laid out rules governing the use of finance and the presentation of financial reports.

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The importance of campaigning started to grow in Lithuania during the 1996 parliamentary elections when election campaign spending increased and the first professional campaigns started. The state ­introduced legislation regulating campaign finance rather late—a special law was introduced in 1998—but has since made many changes. Lithuania transformed the financing mechanism from unrestrictive to a rather strict regime with numerous prohibitions. The present political campaign system provides that campaigning shall be financed from funds received from parties or candidates, which are accumulated in a special election account opened according to a certificate issued by the Central Electoral Committee (CEC). The maximum permitted amount of money in the special election account is EUR 27,500 for a candidate in a single-member constituency (this varies according to the number of voters registered in the constituency which is multiplied by EUR 0.58). For a list of candidates in a multi-­ member constituency, the amount is calculated according to the number of voters in the registries, which is multiplied by 0.0005 of the average monthly wage (in the last elections, approximately EUR 740,000 was the maximum spending limit, see Decision of CEC, December 16, 2015, No. Sp-330). If the amount of money transferred to the appropriate account exceeds the established sum, the surplus shall be transferred by the bank to the state budget. The campaign participants may receive money from several sources: parties (including state subsidies), the personal funds of the candidates, and donations from natural persons. The political advertising campaign officially starts thirty days before the election day when the CEC announces the lists of election participants. Campaign advertising, except outdoor political advertising which appeared before the ban, is forbidden beginning thirty hours before the election day until the end of voting. On the election day, no campaign materials may be present inside of within fifty metres of the polling station building. During political campaigns, there are no limits on publishing public opinion poll results. Election participants are provided with free airtime in the media—every participant may have time on television and radio. The rules of broadcast time and channels are set by the CEC before the elections. From 1992 to 2000, the law indicted that every party list shall have ninety minutes television time and each individual candidate just five minutes radio time; the current law, however, in effect does not mention the specific time and allows campaign participants to participate in discussions presenting their election programmes.

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From the 1992 to 2004, campaign advertising was rather liberal. Election law allowed commercial advertising and established limits on campaigning in commercial media. Campaign participants were provided with public television and radio time (until the 2000 elections ninety minutes of public television time were provided to the parties; from 2000, only sixty minutes for party list participation in television discussions and five minutes of radio time for single mandate candidates were provided). The CEC was obliged to print the election manifestos of parties free of charge. In 2004, some restrictions were introduced. Outdoor advertising was restricted, and parties could place posters only in places specially designated by the municipality. These restrictions stimulated discussions as to whether voters could access the necessary information or even notice that the election period had started. The new law also introduced limits on campaign spending. During a campaign, political advertising must indicate the source of funding and be visibly separated from other disseminated information. In 2008, the parliament made several restrictions on advertising seeking to avoid the growth of campaign expenses, including a ban on paid television and radio political advertising. The law also prohibited commercials and advertisements which were free of charge, allowing only discussion and debates on public television. The new changes were introduced in 2012 when restrictions imposed in 2004 and 2008 were reduced: Outdoor advertising was allowed everywhere and parties with candidates could order thirty-second commercials on television and radio. Now the parties and candidates may buy political advertising via various media: television and radio (advertisements shorter than thirty seconds cannot be used to present political programmes and speak about actual public issues), internet, and print. The virtual space, especially social media platforms, has become a popular place for political marketing.

Historical Overview of Campaigns In Lithuania, the first signs of professional campaigning were seen in the 1996 elections. These elections were extremely competitive: twenty-four party lists participated in the multi-member constituency (MMC); approximately twelve candidates participated in each SMD.  The campaigning and political competition differed from earlier elections. As Junevičius (1998, 100) argues, right-wing political parties were avoiding the rhetoric of anti-communism; patriotism had stopped being the property of ‘one right-wing party’; and, in his opinion, de facto pluralism had appeared.

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The campaign was dominated by the major parties thanks to larger financial resources, and they therefore had an advantage in political management and the possibility to hire advertising professionals. Due to the participation of professionals in the campaigning, more attention was paid to consistent political image-making. For instance, the major party Homeland Union were trying to avoid negative information and concentrated on positive ads; they chose the symbol of swallows in a blue sky for the elections—a symbol still used as a sign of the party. All their candidates had to use ads, posters, symbols, and slogans prepared by the central election headquarters. All ads used one slogan: ‘Homeland Union—Lithuanian success: Secure human being, well-supplied family, rich nation.’ In the advertisements on television, professional actors spoke instead of showing the faces of the politicians. Consequently, there was more attention paid to the image of the political party than to the presentation of ideas. During these elections, the media was more important than meetings with voters because voters showed a disinterest in the elections; the meetings themselves would usually only draw tens of voters. Though the majority of voters (around fifty per cent) indicated television as a primary source of election information, the elections were dominated by the print media (parties were able to buy advertising in print media and had less opportunity to use television ads). This form of media was mentioned as a primary source of information by twenty per cent of voters and as a secondary source by forty per cent (Žėruolis 1998, 249). The major parties ran between fifty-three and seventy per cent of their political advertising on radio, television, and in print media (Unikaitė 2007, 76). Additionally, souvenirs with slogans, such as t-shirts, badges, ballpoint pens, pencils, etc., were used as small gifts for the voters in the elections. In the 2000 elections, competition amongst parties decreased with only fifteen party lists participating. A new feature in this election was the appearance of new political parties, supported by the president, Valdas Adamkus. Right-wing parties split and left-wing parties were showing signs of merging (creating an election coalition)—a new cleavage between old and new parties had arisen. The professionalisation of campaigns started to be more visible than in previous elections. The candidates and representatives of political parties (including the left-wing coalition New Union, a new party) started campaigning earlier than the official start of the election campaign period (Dalinkevičius 2001; Čiupaila 2001). By summer, they were already attending meetings with Lithuanian citizens and showed a preference for

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direct communication with voters. Political advertisements dominated the expenses of the new political parties, with fifty to sixty per cent of their total finances going to media ads. The old major parties declared spending of just five to twenty per cent on advertising; however, journalist suspected the parties used undeclared money for advertising (Drižius 2000). Limiting money for the media, some of the parties increased spending on other expenses. This was done by changing the election campaign strategies and tactics of many parties. They used more direct communication with voters by meeting them and giving them small gifts or souvenirs. There were many discrepancies between financial declarations and real spending, but the supervising institutions were unable to uncover how this had happened. There were two types of advertisements used in the print media: posters featuring both slogans and party leaders and PR articles presenting party achievements, electoral promises, and the previous accomplishments of certain candidates. The use of PR articles was a new trend. For instance, one candidate from NS announced that she gave a concert for doctors as a present while another candidate handed out homemade juice. Candidates also enticed voters to party meetings with beer and surprises, concerts, etc. Poster advertisements also incorporated some innovations. One social democratic coalition combined photos of people working in various sectors and questions related to them (for instance, a doctor in the picture and a question about health policy) but not photos of politicians. The Moderate Conservative Union, in poster advertisements inviting readers to guess what was the picture featured, announced quiz events and promised to award presents—for example, a television set (Unikaitė 2007). New marketing instruments appeared as well: Election buses and cars with the symbols of political parties were seen in different regions throughout Lithuania. In their election campaign preparation, parties started to use public opinion polls showing that the party leader is more actively important to voters in decision making. Therefore, political campaigns started relying more on the leaders instead of the political parties. The 2004 election campaign differed because of the restrictions introduced on campaign financing (spending limits) and outdoor advertising restrictions (only stands and other places indicated by the municipalities were permitted). In campaign advertising, all political parties tried to find popular personalities and invite celebrities to their party lists (Rimšelis 2004; Muntianas 2004). Again, political parties began to campaign more in the media—as much as sixty-eight per cent of their financial resources

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were allocated to this form of advertisement. Advertisements did not present party ideologies but their leaders. There were discrepancies between the advertising reports and advertisement monitoring in the media ­concerning their prices: Parties explained that they received discounts or that their ads were sponsored by supporters. The 2008 elections were similar to previous ones but included one new feature: the beginning of internet use more actively in campaigning through the sending of newsletters and the presentation of parties on their websites. The 2012 elections were important because social media, especially Facebook, was actively used in campaigning. The last elections in 2016 actively used advertisements on Facebook and news media portals; however, door-to-door activities and meetings with smaller groups of voters were used more extensively. These elections were characterised also as debate elections as there were several debates on television and on news media portals as well as in meetings in the SMDs (Table 5.1).

Recent Trends As the campaign analysis shows, parties are the central players in electoral campaigns, but individual candidates are equally important, especially when competing in the SMDs. Lithuanians are more likely to trust leaders and personalities instead of parties. This tendency is noticeable in the results of public opinion polls and in the campaign materials. The major parties’ organisations are coordinated closely at the central level by political leaders and advised by professional consultants such as opinion pollsters and advertisers. Interviews with political party representatives and PR specialists working as political consultants (Auštrevičius 2014; Gapšys 2012; Gudelis 2014; Požėla 2014; Kontrimas 2014; Kaminskas 2016; Mazuronis 2014; Mindaugas 2016; Morkūnaite-­ Mikulėnienė 2014; Muntianas 2004; Rimšelis 2004), indicate that the leadership of the party and central headquarters of the elections play the most important role in election campaigns, but professionals are involved in the activities as well. The parties are usually responsible for strategic decisions, the preparation of a common strategy, and the allocation of resources, while consultants are involved in technical operations, the implementation of strategic decisions, the preparing of campaign materials, political marketing, voter analysis, targeting scheme preparation, etc. Political consultants argue (Gudelis 2014; Kontrimas 2014) that they advise, suggest ideas and proposals, and help parties achieve the desired

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results. They agree that there are rather professional election campaigns in Lithuania because all the necessary communication elements are present: strategic planning, survey analyses, voter analyses, permanent PR communication, event organisation, professional ad preparation, mes­ sages, and slogans. However, the politicians mention two issues related to professional political consultants: Their work is rather expensive, and there are a lack of good experts. Many consultants work within the business sector, not only with politicians. Parties do sometimes try to hire foreign political consultants. Before the 2004 elections, Joseph Napolitan participated in Labour Party training, where political process specifics and electoral technologies were discussed (Šlekys 2004). During the 2008 elections, American PR consultants from Mercury Public Affairs participated in the LiCS campaign. That same year, Order and Justice worked with Ukrainian consultant Marina Jasinskaja (Petrusevičienė 2008). However, the politicians mentioned that their consultancy was expensive (their fees were usually more than 100,000 USD) and foreign consultants were not used to the small budgets (Gapšys 2012). Another process getting more and more popular in Lithuanian electoral politics is personalisation. Lithuanian politics is experiencing this as a reaction to the mediatisation of politics, societal changes, and increasing numbers of volatile voters having no affiliation with parties, wishing to vote for specific candidates and paying attention to the leaders. This tendency is obvious in Lithuanian media and the results of the last Parliamentary elections. However, there has been no research detailing how much personalised communication the political parties and leaders perform themselves. Interviews concerning the practice and motivation of using Facebook in 2012 showed that during these elections Lithuanian politicians had two views concerning online election communication: The Internet is important in shaping public discourse, agenda setting, and maintaining a politician’s image. And the Internet also compliments other means of communication but it is not of great importance, and they preferred direct personal live communication and television. Interviews and a Facebook profile analysis indicate that all the candidates were using Facebook for communication but not equally; Political parties were using Facebook only to provide the information from their websites and to spread this information (a complimentary function of social media); politicians were using Facebook more interactively and were likely to post their messages and opinions and attempt to reply to the comments of followers and keep relationships with citizens.

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All the parties preferred posting and sharing (broadcasting) instead of discussing—less than twenty per cent of their posts were created originally for Facebook. The highest interactivity was shown by the Liberal Movement of the Republic of Lithuania (LRLS): About half of their messages were debated among their followers, commented on, and discussed by party politicians, leaders, and Facebook fans. This is because the party has a younger electorate which is very active on social media. Evaluating personalisation, we may notice that political parties provided various types of personalised information: DP and The Way of Courage party provided important information about their party leaders; LRLS and the Conservatives provided information not only about the party leaders but about other well-known party politicians as well; and the Social Democrats had a strategy of not putting emphasis on their leader, instead stressing the group, collective leadership. In the personalised messages, all parties were likely to present the personal image of the politician by stressing their personality and opinion on the actual issues. Some presented the details of their personal life in order to show that they were similar to voters. An analysis of the Facebook profiles of LRLS, TS-LKD, the DP, and the LVŽS; their leaders’ profiles; and interviews shows a large difference between the 2016 parliamentary election campaign and the previous parliamentary elections. Social media was considered one of the most influential channels of communication. Political parties had specialists performing professionalised communication—social media was used to communicate the personal image of leaders and other leading politicians. All the mentioned parties featured the active communication of their leaders on Facebook along with their personal profiles. The most visible and active, innovative communication was from Gabrielius Landsbergis (leader of TS-LKD and grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis) and Remigijus Šimašius (LRLS). The former leader of DP, Valentinas Mazuronis, was active but he preferred Facebook for his opinion presentation on certain issues, avoiding the use of more sophisticated and diverse communication as well as information concerning his private life. The Leader of the LVŽS, Ramūnas Karbauskis, was not terribly active and communicated more through his party’s Facebook profile. The findings pointed towards three central motives for using social media in the last elections: The first is marketing, meaning that the candidates used it to increase the visibility of their candidacies and parties in the public sphere. Social media was yet another place to promote their politics

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and one in which they could reach voter groups outside traditional media—young people, for example. Moreover, marketing in social media is more personal than in mainstream media. Second, mobilisation was a key motive for being present on Facebook, from inviting people to meetings with politicians to getting out the vote. Third, social media represented new opportunities to connect with voters, get feedback on political issues, discuss politics more continuously, and engage more voters than through older media.

Conclusion The political campaign development in Lithuania experienced a transition from amateur to professional campaigning, adopting new political campaign communication technologies, instruments, and practices developed in the United States or other Western democracies with a long history of campaigning. The campaign organisation and legal framework in Lithuania has changed from rather liberal and unrestricted to a framework with many regulations and restrictions. The most important changes were introduced in campaign finance regulations—banning corporate donations and setting spending limits on campaigns. Advertising was restricted as well— television and radio advertisement limitations, equalisation of ad pricing, changes to outdoor advertising rules, etc. All the changes were implemented in order to make financing more transparent and lower the expenses of campaigning. The professionalisation process of Lithuanian election campaigns happened gradually through the introduction of new characteristics in each election (see Table 5.1). We argue that campaigning is professional due to the participation of various PR and communication consultants together with politicians in campaign organisation, the use of surveys in preparing campaign strategies, voter targeting, preparing campaign materials, and other activities. Though Lithuanian politicians do not trust consultants and are more likely to save many functions of campaign organisation for themselves, in the future we can expect more collaboration between politicians and professional campaign consultants. Personalisation in Lithuanian political campaigns is unavoidable because the mixed electoral system generates two types of campaigning: party-­centred and candidate-centred; voters are more likely to trust personalities and leaders instead of political parties. Volatile voters are growing in numbers. Thus, we

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can expect that the importance of leaders and more direct and personal communication from them will grow in future. Social media marketing in Lithuania tends to be personalised and involves private exposure and individual initiatives. The sharing of private and personal information may, however, be more ‘fun’ for voters and at the same time allow politicians to stage their own multidimensional personae on a continuous basis. Lithuanian political parties use social media for communication more actively than four or even two years ago. They are trying to create professionalised communication on social media, making closer personalised contact with citizens more important than in previous elections. Accordingly, social media contributes to the personalisation of politics by presenting personalities and personal information as well as by establishing close contact with voters. Having a well-developed internet system and the rather active involvement of various citizens’ groups in communication on Facebook and other networks in Lithuania, we can expect political campaigns to use this online environment even more actively in future.

1996

Yes

Yes

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Campaign with characteristics of Yes modern campaigns, participation of professionals in preparing campaign materials, among the most used tools were direct contact with voters, use of public media, posters and leaflets, but voters were more likely to get information from TV, radio, and newspapers than from the meetings with candidates.

Campaign with characteristics of premodern campaigns, not professional, among the most used tools were direct contact with voter, use of public media, posters and leaflets.

1992

Mixed parallel system: 70 members elected in one multi mandate district by List-PR, Hare quota, 4% threshold; 71 single mandate electoral districts with two rounds. Mixed parallel system: 70 members elected in one multi mandate district by List-PR, Hare quota, 5% threshold for party list and 7% for coalition list, and possibility to rate candidates on the list; 71 single mandate electoral districts with two rounds.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 5.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Lithuania

Socio-­economic cleavage.

Nationalist cleavage, pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet cleavage.

No

No

(continued)

Yes

No

Foreign Domestic

Main campaign topics Presence of external advisors

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Campaign with characteristics of modern campaigns, participation of professionals in preparing campaigns, among the most used tools were direct meetings with voters by organising rallies in the country, use of public media, posters and leaflets, but voters were more likely to get information from TV, radio, and newspapers than from the meetings with candidates.

2000

Mixed parallel system: 70 members elected in one multi mandate district by List-PR, Hare quota, 5% threshold for party list and 7% for coalition list, and possibility to rate candidates on the list; 71 single mandate electoral districts with one-round majoritarian system— first-pastthe-post.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 5.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Socio-economic cleavage, new politics and parties vs. old parties and politics.

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Main campaign topics Presence of external advisors

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2016

2012

2008

Campaign with characteristics of modern campaigns, participation of professionals in preparing campaigns, among the most used tools were direct meetings with voters, use of public and commercial media, posters and leaflets, a new feature- limiting places for outdoor advertising, invitation of celebrities to party candidate lists. Campaign modern but with signs of postmodern campaigns, participation of professionals in preparing campaigns, among the most used tools were door-to-door contact, use of public and commercial media, posters and leaflets, a new feature— use of the Internet by sending newsletters and presenting parties on their websites. Campaign modern but with signs of postmodern campaigns, participation of professionals in preparing campaigns, among the most used tools were door-to-door contact, use of public and commercial media ads, social media—especially Facebook— was actively used in the campaigning.

2004

Mixed parallel system: 70 members elected in one multi mandate district by List-PR, Hare quota, 5% threshold for party list and 7% for coalition list, and possibility to rate candidates on the list; 71 single mandate electoral districts with a two-round majoritarian system.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 5.1 (continued)

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Yes

Justice, corruption, Yes socio-economic cleavage. Elite/anti-elite Yes cleavage, professionals vs. political party members, political scandals.

Socio-economic cleavage, etc.

Socio-economic Yes cleavage, populism, Euro-Atlantic integration, fight with corruption.

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Main campaign topics Presence of external advisors

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2012 2016

2008

2004

2000

1996

1992

Types of campaign activities

Billboards, public TV, radio, Meetings with voters, discussions on ads in print media. TV and radio, campaigning in public spaces with leaflets. Billboards, public TV, radio, Meetings with voters, discussions on commercial TV ads, ads in TV and radio, ads on TV, campaigning print media. in public spaces with leaflets, souvenirs Billboards, public TV, radio, Rallies and meetings with voters, ads in print media, ads on souvenirs and concerts like gifts for the special buses and cars. voters, ads in the media, campaigning in public spaces with leaflets, souvenirs, door-to-door contact with voters. Ads in print media, radio, Participation in discussion on public and TV; Billboards. media (radio and TV), ads in commercial media, meetings with voters, concerts and souvenirs. Ads in print media, radio and Participation in discussion on public TV; discussions on public media (radio and TV), ads in TV and radio; billboards; commercial media, meetings with leaflets; and party websites. voters, souvenirs, leaflet distribution. Ads in printed media, radio Door-to-door contact with voters, and TV; discussions on leaflet distribution in public spaces, public TV and radio; discussion on TV and radio, billboards; leaflets; party communication with voters on websites and Facebook Facebook, contacting voters by phone. profiles; and ads on news media portals and Facebook

Year of Type of communication (ads election and media)

Table 5.1 (continued)

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Use of Campaign Free Possibility Notes polling and spending airtime to buy research limits on public airtime techniques? media

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References Auštrevičius, Petras. 2014. Personal Interview by Edgaras Petručionis. Čiupaila, Regimantas. 2001. Personal Interview by Ingrida Unikaitė. Dalinkevičius, Gediminas. 2001. Personal Interview by Ingrida Unikaitė. Drižius, Aurimas. 2000. Didžiausias partijų rėmėjas – šešėlinė ekonomika. Lietuvos aidas, February 2. No. 232: 3. Gapšys, Vytautas. 2012. Personal Interview by Edgaras Petručionis. Gudelis, Darius. 2014. Personal Interview by Edgaras Petručionis. Junevičius, Algis. 1998. Seimo rinkimų ’96 kampanijos eiga ir ypatybės. In Seimo rinkimai ’96: trečiasis “atmetimas”, ed. Alsgis Krupavičius, 176–227. Kaunas: Tvermė. Jurkynas, Mindaugas. 2017. The Parliamentary Election in Lithuania, October 2016. Electoral Studies 47 (June): 46–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. electstud.2017.04.001. Kaminskas, Laurynas. 2016. Phone Interview by Ingrida Ivinskaitė. Kontrimas, Linsa. 2014. E-mail Interview by Edgaras Petručionis. Mazuronis, Andrius. 2014. Personal Interview by Edgaras Petručionis. Mindaugas, Lapinskas. 2016. Personal Interview by Ingrida Ivinskaitė. Morkūnaite-Mikulėnienė, Radvilė. 2014. Personal Interview by Edgaras Petručionis. Muntianas, Viktoras. 2004. Personal Interview by Edita Alijevaitė. Petrusevičienė, Raminta. 2008. ‘Tvarka ir Teisingumas’ įtariama neteisėtu finansavimu iš Rusijos. Tv3.lt. https://www.tv3.lt/naujiena/199685/lietuva/ lietuva?utm_source=kitiRubrikosStr&utm_medium=susijeLietuva&utm_ campaign=naujiena&page=2. Accessed 20 June 2019. Požėla, Juras. 2014. Personal Interview by Edgaras Petručionis. Rimšelis, Klemensas. 2004. Personal Interview by Aistė Pikšrytė. Šlekys, Deividas. 2004. Ar ameerikiečiai turi ką patarti Rytų Europoje? Delfi. https://www.delfi.lt/archive/ar-amerikieciai-turi-ka-patar ti-r ytueuropoje.d?id=3886883. Accessed 20 June 2019. The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. 1992. http://www3.lrs.lt/home/ Konstitucija/Constitution.htm. Accessed 20 June 2019. The Law of the Funding and Funding Control of Political Parties, Political Organizations and Political Campaigns. 2004. http://www.vrk.lt/index.eng. html. Accessed 20 June 2019. The Law on Elections to the Seimas. 1992. http://www.vrk.lt/index.eng.html. Accessed 20 June 2019. The Law on the Control of the Funding of Political Campaigns of the Republic of Lithuania. 1997. http://www.vrk.lt/index.eng.html. Accessed 20 June 2019. Unikaitė, Ingrida. 2007. Rinkimų kampanijos sąsajos su rinkimų rezultatais: LR Seimo rinkimų (1996–2004) atvejis. PhD diss., Vytautas Magnus University.

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———. 2008. Lithuania: Political Finance Regulations as a Tool of Political Manipulation. In Public Finance and Post-Communist Party Development, ed. Jānis Ikstens and Steven Roper, 29–44. Aldershot: Ashgate. Žėruolis, Darius. 1998. Racionalūs rinkėjai. Absenteizmo priežastys. In Seimo rinkimai ’96: trečiasis “atmetimas”, ed. Algis Krupavičius, 244–263. Kaunas: Tvermė.

CHAPTER 6

Summary for the Baltic States Otto Eibl

All three Baltic states declared independence from the former Soviet Union between March 1990 (Lithuania) and August 1991 (Estonia and Latvia). Since then, their foreign policy has been clearly oriented towards the West. The fact that they became and are members of the European Union, NATO, the Eurozone, the Council of Europe, and the Schengen Area reflects this. Today, it feels only natural that we count the Baltic states among stable and pro-EU oriented democracies; however, we must remind ourselves that their pro-Western orientation in the early 1990s was not assured—up to about one-third of their citizens were Russian (or used the Russian language at home), and it was not entirely clear if they would politically identify with the Baltic states or remain under the influence of Russia and Russian media. All three countries are parliamentary republics, although Lithuania shows some signs of semi-presidentialism. To elect their MPs, Estonia and Latvia use a proportional electoral system, while Latvia relies on a mixed electoral system—which has, of course, consequences for parties, candidates, and campaign professionals as well. However, regardless of the electoral system used, parties run a central campaign and candidates focus O. Eibl (*) Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_6

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on their personal campaigns, which are conducted next to the central one as a supplement. Electoral markets in Latvia and Lithuania are (semi-) open and, during the last thirty years, we have seen many newcomers in the field as a consequence of lower levels of citizen trust towards political parties. Estonia’s party system, on the other hand, is quite stable and predictable. Estonia slightly differs in the rules which regulate election campaigns. While the Lithuanian and Latvian lawmakers introduced campaign spending limits (which came into force for the 2000 and 2006 elections respectively), in Estonia parties and candidates can operate without any caps; the only obligation they have is to report all spending to a supervision committee. Estonia is also the only country where free airtime in public media is not granted to contestants (no ads are broadcasted on these channels). Besides the free airtime, parties in all countries can buy additional airtime on (commercial) television and radio, as well as space in print media and other traditional advertising forms (again with the exception of Estonia, where outdoor political advertisement during the official campaign period has been forbidden since 2005). Campaigns here have unfolded slowly and evolutionarily; the main topics of them being geopolitical, nationalistic, economic, or social issues. In the very beginning, they were executed at a rather amateurish level, without more profound knowledge of how to prepare, communicate, and market political products. However, in Latvia, there were consultants from abroad present from the very first election in 1993. They came mostly from Western NGOs and provided communication and other campaign-related trainings for pro-democratic (and not pro-Russian) parties and their candidates. However, the domestic parties quickly realised that not all of those techniques are transferable to the Latvian (or Baltic states in general) environment. This is another consequence of the low trust in politics (at least in Lithuania and Latvia), where voters are reserved about attending a political party meeting or opening their door when a candidate (or someone from his team) knocks on it during the contact phase of a campaign. Campaigns became visibly more professionalised in the second half of the 1990s. It was the Lithuanians parties and candidates who first appointed advertising professionals to improve their image in 1996. They were followed by their Estonian counterparts in 1999, who invited professional media and advertising agencies to help them craft high-quality

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outdoor ads. After the year 2000, the pace of development and professionalisation further increased with the arrival of new political parties. They were clearly aware of how much communication (and its quality) matters and therefore aimed much of their effort at developing a generally pleasing image of themselves. It was a time of aggressive campaigns and rhetoric (Res Publica in Estonia, for instance), higher personalisation, dramatic television spots, simple but powerful messages on billboards, the use of unique campaign tools (election buses and cars), etc. Together with this visible campaign, the invisible (strategic thinking) developed as well, and marketing processes like segmentation and targeting became a natural part of politics. As a consequence of campaign professionalisation, the perceived negativity levels of the campaigns were on the rise, and political parties and candidates increasingly started using simple populists appeals or causing scandals to attract the attention of voters. In some cases, some of the campaign tools were used so excessively that lawmakers decided to ban them (such as the use of outdoor advertising in Estonia or the introduction of spending limits and outdoor advertising restrictions in Lithuania). In the second half of 2000s, parties and candidates started using new media and online tools (like various voting advice applications); today, it is almost unthinkable that a campaign could be run without them. The stress is on social media and direct communication with voters. At the same time, political parties and candidates still use traditional ‘old-fashioned’ campaign tactics and techniques. In this respect, Baltic political parties and candidates use the same (or at least comparable) set of campaign tools and techniques as their Western counterparts. However, there is still at least one quite significant difference between them: It seems that for political parties in Lithuania and Latvia, marketing works only before an election. After MPs are elected, political parties stop communicating and do not maintain their relationships with their voters. That is, of course, a mistake, as it leads to higher levels of voter volatility and makes it difficult for some parties to survive from one election cycle to another.

PART II

Central Europe

CHAPTER 7

Characteristics of Central Europe Building and Challenging Liberal Democracy Lubomír Kopeček

Had this piece been written ten years ago, the story it would have described would almost look like a fairy-tale with a happy ending. Almost until the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the developments in Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia looked like an unambiguous triumph of liberal democracy. Of course, there were differences between these countries in some respects including in timing, as outlined in the first part of this piece. But, as the second part shows, what is typical of the region today is the challenging of liberal democracy. In 1989, the era of communist regimes ended in East-Central Europe. Without going into too much detail, the end of communism in Poland was the result of a complicated and protracted process which resulted in a pact: an agreement between the moderate segment of the opposition, the Solidarity movement, and some representatives of the old regime. In Hungary, a reformist communist elite substantially took the initiative; as in Poland, they faced the threat of economic collapse in their country. Polish and Hungarian communists were also responding L. Kopeček (*) Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_7

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to a crisis in the crucial state of the Eastern Bloc—the Soviet Union— whose leaders, with Mikhail Gorbachev at the helm, faced major problems themselves and so lost interest in the fate of the Union’s satellites. By contrast, Czechoslovak communists showed much less willingness to change, and their regime ultimately collapsed due to stresses linked to the breakdown of the Eastern Bloc and pressure from the domestic opposition, which became much more active than it had been previously and which was able in November 1989 to lean on the support of mass demonstrations (Przeworski 1991; Karl and Schmitter 1991; Durman 1998). Timothy Garton Ash (1990, 54) succinctly expressed the different endgames of the communist regimes in East-Central Europe when he wrote, ‘What took ten years in Poland, took ten months in Hungary, ten weeks in East Germany, and ten days in Czechoslovakia.’ Throughout the 1990s, the region witnessed hectic change. In Czechoslovakia, the tensions between the two republics which made up the country resulted in the disbanding of the common state. The transitions to market economies, which replaced the underperforming centrally planned systems, affected the lives of ordinary Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, and Slovaks particularly strongly. Whereas some people were able to make good use of the new options available for entrepreneurship and career development or ‘made it’ in some other way, others suffered a decline in their living standards, unemployment, and deprivation. The winners and losers of transformation emerged with enormous political consequences. The question of the best path for economic transformation was a major topic of discussion at the time. Often it was Hungary which was described as a star pupil. The country opted for a gradual movement towards reform rather than the shock therapy or snap change best exemplified by Poland. More important were the broader consequences for society, but in this respect, there were no huge differences between the countries of the region. The hangover experienced by the alleged star pupil, Hungary, was aptly described by the economist János Kornai (1998): ‘The public is convinced that the process of privatisation is accompanied by an immense wave of corruption. To a certain extent that is true.’ At that time, it was largely the left which exploited social dissatisfaction politically. In Poland in 1993 and in Hungary a year later, the socialist parties which emerged from the former communist structures came to governmental power. In Czechia, the Communist Party rejected a radical ideological overhaul and remained a nostalgic reminder of the old regime. For this reason, it was the Czech Social Democratic Party—with a t­ radition

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reaching back to the pre-communist era—which emerged as the major force of the left, becoming a party of government in 1998. The rise of the left to power did not imply a questioning of the consensus concerned with building a liberal democracy. Despite acrimonious political conflicts, leaders in Poland, Hungary, and Czechia respected the rules of democracy; expressed in the words of Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, they saw democracy as ‘the only game in town’ (Linz and Stepan 1996). For all three countries, the vision of integration into the structures of the West acted as a magnet. In 1999, they acceded to NATO and, five years later, to the European Union (Haughton 2017). However, the causes of discontent experienced by many Poles, Hungarians, and Czechs did not disappear, they were merely suppressed. The discontent was also fuelled by other phenomena, for example, a feeling that the communist past had not been dealt with—a major political issue in Poland and Hungary in particular. Slovakia’s path was the most complicated. In 1992, Vladimír Mečiar’s nationalist Movement for a Democratic Slovakia came to power. Under Mečiar’s rule, the country shifted towards an illiberal political regime, characterised by unfair attacks on the opposition, flagrant violations of the constitution, and abuses of state-run media and the secret service, which, for instance, was involved in the abduction of the son of the country’s president, Michal Kováč, who clashed with Mečiar as prime minister. However, Mečiar’s regime failed to establish itself fully as the opposition was able to overcome their political differences and join forces to defeat Mečiar in the 1998 elections (see e.g. Szomolányi 1999). This democratisation process too was aided by the attractions of integrating into Western structures, for which Mečiar’s style of governance was not acceptable. Slovakia quickly made up for the lost time, becoming a NATO and EU member in 2004. If there was a point when the debate about the consolidation of liberal democracy in East-Central Europe seemed to be over (e.g. Merkel 2007), developments since the end of the twenty-first century’s first decade have called any such notion of closure into question. Economic problems and financial crises created fertile ground for such a re-examination. Hungary was exemplary in this respect. After the socialists’ victory in the 2006 elections, it became clear that their promises had been unrealistic given the country’s economic condition. An infamous speech by the socialist prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, leaked to the public and containing the words ‘we lied morning, noon and night’ (BBC 2006), was the catalyst for a surge of discontent. This was followed by colossal anti-government protests and,

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in combination with what was in effect the country’s economic bankruptcy, carried Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz to power in the 2010 elections. Fidesz was founded in the late 1980s as an anti-communist and liberal entity. The party did remain anti-communist but, in the second half of the 1990s, it replaced its liberalism with a conservative-nationalist orientation, reflecting the pre-communist history of the country as well as Christian, rural, and authoritarian ideological elements. Orbán took advantage of his commanding constitutional majority in parliament to undertake a series of radical institutional changes, completed with the adoption of a new constitution; this has been described by some as a ‘constitutional coup d’état’ (Ágh 2013). Orbán’s transformation of the political system limited parliamentary and judicial control over the government. In particular, the Constitutional Court experienced a profound change; its importance was reduced drastically, leading to a decrease in the protection of basic human rights and freedoms (Havlík 2016; Bogaards 2018). Fidész’s parliamentary supermajority was then consolidated institutionally by a reform of the mixed electoral system (Tóka 2014; Havlík 2012) and confirmed by the 2014 and 2018 elections, both of which the party won by a landslide. Orbán’s transformation of Hungary has also substantially affected the media, NGOs, and universities. New media legislation strengthened the power of a new Media Council, appointed by a parliamentary committee controlled by Fidesz, thus enabling the party to colonise the media (Bajomi-Lázár 2013). Human rights groups and foreign foundations and institutions were subjected to a government campaign; the Open Society Fund and the Central European University, for example, left the country (Bogaards 2018). Orbán’s concentration of power and removal of checks and balances was accompanied by his avowed building of an illiberal democracy (Orbán 2014). When Jaroslaw Kaczyński’s Law and Justice (PiS) party won the 2015 elections in Poland, it followed Orbán’s example. Soon after the elections, PiS embarked on rapid institutional change, radically transforming the judiciary and prosecution service (including a reduction in the importance of the Constitutional Tribunal), the media (in particular, public service broadcasters), NGOs, and academia. However, Kaczyński’s path towards the concentration of power was different in some respects from Orbán’s. Among the most important was the fact that PiS lacked a constitutional majority in parliament, and thus, Kaczyński had to follow a more complicated legal procedure. The opposition in Poland was also much stronger and able to unite on a course of action (Sadurski 2018; Markowski 2019).

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The latter factor in particular has challenged the permanency of the political arrangement pushed through by PiS. The illiberal turn has also affected Czechia. Andrej Babiš, the owner of a large agro-chemical conglomerate, founded a party, ANO (meaning ‘yes’ in Czech), which scored a substantial success in the 2013 elections and went on to win in 2017. Unlike Fidesz’s and PiS’s ethnic nationalism, ANO has been characterised by a technocratic approach, aptly expressed in its leader’s slogan, ‘to manage the state as a business firm’ (Kopeček 2016). Babiš not only joined economic power with political power, but also bought some of the country’s media. What is more, the risks to liberal democracy have not been connected solely with the rise of Babiš’s ANO, but also with other factors, such as the actions of the country’s president, Miloš Zeman, who has often disrupted the constitutional system (Hanley and Vachudova 2018). However, unlike in Hungary and Poland, in Czechia the developments did not involve a major change in the political regime. Crucially, even after the 2017 elections, ANO did not command a majority in parliament, and Babiš led a minority government which was dependent on other political actors. The important spheres or institutions, including the judiciary, civil society, and the upper chamber of parliament, have maintained their autonomy and influence. In reality, power in Czechia has remained much more diffuse than in Hungary and Poland. Slovakia, ruled since 2006 with a brief interruption in the 2010–2012 period by Robert Fico’s left-nationalist SMER party either alone or in coalition, might seem something of an exception in the region. However, a closer look reveals a marked lack of popular trust in the quality of governance (Učeň 2018; Mesežnikov and Gyárfášová 2018). This mistrust was fuelled by a series of corruption and other scandals, followed by major protests; the most important occurred in the summer of 2018 in response to the murders of an investigative journalist and his partner. People around Prime Minister Fico were suspected of having links with the Italian mafia, and the government ultimately resigned; nevertheless, a SMER-led government coalition continued. In sum, after a period which seemed one of undisputed consolidation of liberal democracy, East-Central Europe experienced a democratic deconsolidation (Dufek et al. 2016). The current situation is however very different in each of the countries of the region. In Hungary, an illiberal regime has become established. Poland has embarked on a course similar to Hungary’s but did so later, and the result today is uncertain. Despite a certain weakening of liberal elements, one cannot yet speak of a fundamental

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revision of the political regime in Czechia, as power remains diffuse in the country. In Slovakia, the quality of liberal democracy is poor, but this is not a consequence of any recent deterioration but a longer-­term issue.

References Ágh, Attila. 2013. The Triple Crisis in Hungary: The ‘Backsliding’ of Hungarian Democracy After Twenty Years. Romanian Journal of Political Science 13 (1): 25–51. Ash, Timothy Garton. 1990. The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ‘89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague. New York: Random House. Bajomi-Lázár, Péter. 2013. The Party Colonisation of the Media: The Case of Hungary. East European Politics and Societies 27 (1): 69–89. https://doi. org/10.1177/0888325412465085. BBC. 2006. Excerpts: Hungarian ‘Lies’ Speech. BBC, September 19. http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5359546.stm. Accessed 20 June 2019. Bogaards, Matthijs. 2018. De-democratization in Hungary: Diffusely Defective Democracy. Democratization 25 (8): 1481–1499. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13510347.2018.1485015. Dufek, Pavel, Jan Holzer, and Miroslav Mareš. 2016. Challenges to Democracy in East Central European Politics: Introductory Remarks. In Challenges to Democracies in East Central Europe, ed. Jan Holzer and Miroslav Mareš, 1–14. London and New York: Routledge. Durman, Karel. 1998. Útěk od praporů. Praha: Karolinum. Hanley, Seán, and Milada Anna Vachudova. 2018. Understanding the Illiberal Turn: Democratic Backsliding in the Czech Republic. East European Politics 34 (3): 276–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2018.1493457. Haughton, Tim. 2017. Central and Eastern Europe: The Sacrifices of Solidarity, the Discomforts of Diversity, and the Vexations of Vulnerabilities. In The European Union in Crises, ed. Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent, and William E. Paterson, 253–268. London: Palgrave. Havlík, Vratislav. 2012. Maďarský volební systém jako záruka stability vlád? Politics in Central Europe 8 (2): 7–21. Havlík, Vlastimil. 2016. Populism as a Threat to Liberal Democracy in East Central Europe. In Challenges to Democracies in East Central Europe, ed. Jan Holzer and Miroslav Mareš, 36–55. London and New York: Routledge. Karl, Terry Lynn, and Philippe C. Schmitter. 1991. Modes of Transition in Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe. International Social Science Journal 128 (2): 267–282. Kopeček, Lubomír. 2016. ‘I’m Paying, So I Decide’: Czech ANO as an Extreme Form of a Business-Firm Party. East European Politics and Societies 30 (4): 725– 749. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325416650254.

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Kornai, János. 1998. Od gulášového komunismu k trhovej ekonomike. Bratislava: Kalligram. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred C.  Stepan. 1996. Toward Consolidated Democracies. Journal of Democracy 7 (2): 14–33. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.1996.0031. Markowski, Radoslaw. 2019. Creating Authoritarian Clientelism: Poland After 2015. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 11 (1): 111–132. https://doi. org/10.1007/s40803-018-0082-5. Merkel, Wolfgang. 2007. Gegen alle Theorie? Die Konsoliedierung der Democratie in Ostmitteleuropa. Politische Vierteljahresschrift 48 (3): 413–433. Mesežnikov, Grigorij, and Oľga Gyárfášová. 2018. Slovakia’s Conflicting Camps. Journal of Democracy 29 (3): 78–90. https://doi.org/10.1353/ jod.2018.0046. Orbán, Viktor. 2014. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Speech at the 25th Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp, July 30. https://www.kormany. hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/prime-ministerviktor-orban-s-speech-at-the-25th-balvanyos-summer-free-university-andstudent-camp. Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sadurski, Wojciech. 2018. How Democracy Dies (in Poland): A Case Study of Anti-­ Constitutional Populist Backsliding. Legal Studies Research Paper, No. 18/01. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3103491. Szomolányi, Soňa. 1999. Kľukatá cesta Slovenska k demokracii. Bratislava: Stimul. Tóka, Gábor. 2014. Constitutional Principles and Electoral Democracy in Hungary. In Constitution Building in Consolidated Democracies: A New Beginning or Decay of a Political System? ed. Ellen Bos and Kálmán Pócza, 267–289. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag. Učeň, Peter. 2018. Slovakia. Nations in Transit 2018. Freedom House. https:// freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2018/slovakia.

CHAPTER 8

Czech Republic Miloš Gregor

Country Overview The Czech Republic is a bicameral parliamentary republic established in 1993 after the division of Czechoslovakia. After forty-one years of communism, a peaceful transition process called Velvet Revolution led to the commencement of a democratic regime in 1989 (Soukeník et al. 2017). The main driving force in the process of democratisation was the Civic Forum (OF). The first free elections in Czechoslovakia were held in 1990 and OF won at the polls. However, shortly after the elections, OF disintegrated and early elections were held in 1992. In these elections, the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the main successor of OF and a determining political force of the transformation and during the 1990s, won with a third of the vote. Because of lasting disputes between the Czechs and Slovaks, the political representation which emerged from the elections agreed to split the federation into the Czech and Slovak Republics on 1 January 1993. The Federal Assembly ceased to exist, and the Czech National Council transformed into the Chamber of Deputies. Today, the Czech Republic is divided into fourteen constituencies by a proportional M. Gregor (*) Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_8

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representative electoral system using the d’Hondt method of four-year terms with a five per cent threshold for a party. In the case of a coalition, the threshold is ten, fifteen, and twenty per cent respectively for coalitions consisting of two, three, or more parties (Šedo 2007, 34–36). The second chamber, the Senate, was not established until 1996. The first elections to the Chamber of Deputies in 1996 confirmed the position of ODS, but its competitor on the left-wing the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) matched its support. For almost two decades, the Czech party system was characterised by relative stability provided by the presence of these two strong political parties; two weaker actors, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) and the Christian and Democrat Union (KDU-ČSL); and the presence of new entities in the Chamber of Deputies after each election. Newcomers usually had voter support barely big enough to enter the parliament, but they often played the role of pivotal coalition partners. The 2010 elections changed this situation, with two new parties TOP 09 and Public Affairs (VV) winning larger support and, therefore, playing an important role. However, the early election in 2013 represented an even greater political earthquake: The winner, ČSSD, received less than two per cent more votes than new party ANO; both parties together with KDU-ČSL formed a government. Not long after the elections, ANO became the party with the highest support in polls, and its leader, Andrej Babiš, became the most popular politician in the Czech Republic. The last elections in 2017 represented a record number of parties in the two-hundred-member Chamber of Deputies with nine parties crossing the legal threshold, including newcomers the Czech Pirate Party (Pirates) and the far-right populists Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD). Since 1999, the Czech Republic has been part of NATO and a member of the European Union since 2004.

Legal Framework For a long time, the rules of election campaigns in the Czech Republic were defined vaguely and often without clear boundaries. The main rules were defined between 1991 and 1995 and were not reformed for many years. The biggest change came in 2017 when an amendment to the Electoral Law (Act no. 247/1995 Coll.) came into force. Above all, the campaign became time-limited, spending limits were set for political

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parties (90 million CZK or approx. 3.5 million EUR for elections to the Chamber of Deputies) as well as donors (3  million CZK annually or approx. 117,000 EUR), and some new obligations were additionally introduced. At the same time, an amendment to the law on association in political parties and political movements (Act no. 424/1991 Coll.) established the Office for the Oversight of Financing of Political Parties and Movements (ÚDHPSH), responsible for controlling the parties. However, the powers it possesses are limited and the sanctions it can impose are rather mild. According to the new law, the election campaign begins on the day of the election announcement and ends on the day the overall result is announced. A novel part of the legislation obligated campaign materials to be labelled with information as to its producer and funder, which was implemented to reduce that time-honoured practice of negative and defamatory anonymous advertisements. Since 2017, political parties running for office must prepare a transparent account exclusively for campaign funding. Additionally, for the first time, a natural or legal person was allowed to register as a ‘third party’ and independently conduct a campaign in favour of a certain contestant or against them (Eibl and Gregor 2019). Political parties are entitled to a total of fourteen hours of broadcasting time on Český rozhlas (Czech Radio) as well as on Česká televize (Czech Television). The time is equally divided among all running parties and is available to them between sixteen days and forty-eight hours before the election. Similarly, municipal mayors may reserve areas for election posters sixteen days before the election. Spots cannot be broadcast on private radio and television channels, nor can the parties buy extra time on public service media. Political parties in the Czech Republic are richly funded by the state. If the party exceeds 1.5% of votes in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, it receives 100 CZK (approx. 4 EUR) per vote. If it exceeds 3%, it receives another 6 million CZK (235,000 EUR) annually (plus 200,000 CZK for each extra 0.1% up to 5% or 10 million CZK, approx. 390,000 EUR). In case the party has candidates elected as MPs, its treasury will improve by 900,000 CZK (35,000 EUR) annually for each mandate. There is a moratorium on the publication of surveys and polls beginning three days before the election which remains in place until the closure of polling stations.

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Historical Overview of Campaigns Although until 1993 it was Czechoslovakia, not the Czech Republic, it is necessary to mention two elections held in 1990 and 1992. The first because foreign political consultants played an important role in the campaigns, the latter because of the political representation elected in 1992 ruled the Czech Republic until the 1996 elections. The elections in 1990 were won by OF in a landslide, followed by the Communists and HSD-SMS, a Moravian and Silesian regional movement. The main topic of the elections was the country’s further direction; in other words, how to end the communist era. Thus, the elections were more of a plebiscite about the transition to democracy than a fight over political ideologies and manifestos. ‘Standard’ political issues came on the stage in the elections two years later. OF’s slogan was: ‘The parties are for party-members, Civic Forum is for everyone.’1 Politicians had no experience with campaigning after decades of communism, so foreign political consultants were hired. Václav Havel, the main figure of the Velvet Revolution, the face of OF, and the president of Czechoslovakia, was advised by the Sawyer Miller Group from the US. The main communication tool used in the campaigns were leaflets, posters, and meetings. Most of the posters didn’t have a unified graphic layout and lacked unifying elements; however, a frequent motif was the return to Europe and the Czechoslovak tricolour (white, red, and blue). At meetings with voters, OF candidates often presented themselves as Václav Havel’s running mates, despite the fact that Havel was not running for office.2 Other political party campaigns were rather unprofessional. KDU-ČSL presented the motto ‘You vote for evil if you don’t vote’ alluding to the loyalty of Communist voters. The rest of the parties also ran campaigns focused mainly against the Communists. The 1992 elections brought a change in the key political actor as well as a focus on political issues. After the break-up of OF, ODS, led by Václav Klaus, was established, and economic reforms became the main topic of 1  The slogan referred to the general unpopularity of political parties among citizens because of four decades of one-party rule via the Communist Party. 2  For example, at his meetings, Václav Klaus (the future prime minister and president of the Czech Republic) was accompanied by a car with a loudspeaker proclaiming, ‘If you vote for Klaus, you vote for Havel as well.’ Klaus became the surprise of the elections when he gained—thanks to an intensive personal campaign with over one hundred voter meetings, sometimes with up to a hundred thousand people in attendance—the most preference votes.

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the elections. Klaus took advantage of knowledge acquired two years before and led an intensive canvassing campaign. Although ODS did not win a majority, they were able to attract every third voter and received significantly more than the Left Bloc (14% of votes), which was composed mainly of the Communists and smaller left-wing parties. It was unacceptable for any governmental to cooperate with the Left Bloc (which was true of the Communist Party as well until 2017), so the election results ensured the comfortable formation of a government coalition of KDU-ČSL and the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA), garnering 6.3% and 5.9% respectfully. Overall six parties were represented with 5–7% of votes in these elections. The first elections to the Czech Republic’s Chamber of Deputies, held in 1996, were in the spirit of defending the economic reforms of the ruling parties. The elections were won by ODS and followed by ČSSD, led by Miloš Zeman. The Communist Party, KDU-ČSL, the far-right Republican Party (SPR-RSČ) and ODA also had candidates elected. The slogan of ODS was ‘We proved that we can do it’, which emphasised the position of the Czech Republic as a country where the transformation from the communist regime was smooth and one of the most successful in the Eastern Bloc. While Klaus, as prime minister, was not able to perform a fully-­fledged contact campaign, his challenger Zeman was able to focus one hundred per cent on the campaign. Zeman’s spectacular campaign tour across the country was conducted on a bus called Zemák. This element of the campaign, which was imported from Poland and Germany, was new to Czech voters and unrivalled. While we can follow a politician’s private life like a soap opera on social media today, the headline grabber in 1996 was Zemák. ČSSD were able to unite the non-communist left, which was reflected in a growth of voter support. Zeman was able to attract their attention not only through his bus but by sharp statements and soundbites to the detriment of the government and ODS. In contrast to the 1990 elections, these elections were characterised by campaigns prepared only by the parties themselves or domestic consultants. In 1998, an early election took place after the fall of the government, caused mainly by ODS funding scandals. Due to the brief preparation period, the campaigns did not bring any extraordinary or new elements. The main topic of the elections were the ODS scandals, highlighted especially by ČSSD. The Social Democrats continued the campaign style they presented in 1996. The environment affected the ODS strategy, which framed Klaus as a martyr and conceived the campaign as a mobilisation

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against the growing left. The word ‘mobilisation’ was even the main slogan of their campaign. However, this goal failed and ČSSD won the election with 32.3 per cent of the votes followed by ODS with 27.4 per cent. Three more parties were elected to the Chamber of Deputies: KSČM, KDU-ČSL, and the Union of Freedom (US), a new party formed by former ODS members; each party receive approx. ten per cent of the votes. The elections in 2002 were influenced by a non-standard government arrangement from previous years, the so-called ‘Opposition Agreement’ (Kopeček 2015). No government majority rose out of the election, and in the end, the two rivals, ČSSD and ODS, agreed to cooperate. However, it was not a regular coalition government, but a ČSSD minority government supported by the opposition ODS on fundamental issues. Therefore, it was inconceivable for both parties to attack each other as they had before in the 2002 campaigns. The Social Democrats had undergone a personnel change and were being newly led by Vladimír Špidla, who was the polar opposite of Miloš Zeman—a modest, quiet, and inconspicuous introvert. Thus, the ČSSD campaign emphasised issues over personalities, and in the case of politicians, it highlighted regional candidates over the party leader. The Civic Democrats continued to be led by Václav Klaus, which meant it was harder to hide from the past scandals and Opposition Agreement. The drab ODS campaign and party was now grappling with how to handle it. Thus, many candidates conducted an individual campaign visually unconnected to the party line. Some smaller parties3 merged into the coalition hoping they would be perceived as a major challenger to ČSSD.  In the end, the coalition ended in fourth with 14.3%—even KSČM got more votes with 18.5%. For the Communists, this was their best result in the history of the modern Czech Republic. ČSSD won the election with 30.2%, followed by ODS with 24.5% of votes (volby.cz 2002). The campaigns in 2006 are considered to have been groundbreaking as they were conducted with a considerable degree of professionalisation (Matušková 2006). The campaigns focused more than ever before on manifestos and issues. Compared to previous elections, there was also a clear polarisation of campaigns. This was supported by the media as well, because in many cases, they invited only Mirek Topolánek, who had replaced Václav Klaus as a leader of ODS, and Jiří Paroubek, leader of ČSSD, to the election debates. Foreign political consultants also returned 3  KDU-ČSL and US-DEU, which arose from a merger of the Union of Freedom and the Democratic Union.

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to the Czech Republic. Penn Schoen Berland (PSB) worked on the ČSSD campaign; they identified the main topics of the campaign, formulated slogans, and set the dynamics of the campaign. The backbone of the campaign consisted of opinion polls.4 The campaign’s motto was ‘Confidence and Prosperity’, and although the overall campaigns were focused on issues, ČSSD’s main effort was to embrace the elections as a duel between two probably future premiers—Paroubek being more popular than Topolánek. In addition to this level, the Social Democrats relied on negative advertising, trying to break the position of the Civic Democrats as the immovable favourite of the election. This was supported by posters and billboards with the slogan ‘ODS Minus’, which referred to the official campaign of the Civic Democrats, ‘ODS Plus’. For Paroubek, polls had become content—not only did he use them to formulate the strategy and tactics of the campaign but they also served him as an argument per se in television debates. The ČSSD campaign was centralised, interconnected, visually well prepared, and unified. The central motto of ODS was ‘On the blue path together’ accompanied by a tourist trail pointing to the right. Another distinctive element of their campaign were spots directed by the famous Czech director Filip Renč. The spots were conceived as great adventurous movie stories. Clearly, ODS had significantly changed its image and approach to campaigns. It began to analyse voters and examine their demands as well (Matušková 2006). At the end of the campaign, anti-communism played an important role as well as the atmosphere within the society—with the help of the media, there was a feeling that it was crucial to vote. This was reflected in the high turnout, which reached almost 65% (volby.cz 2006). As the supposed winner of the election, ODS succeeded in winning the historically best result of 35.4% of votes, followed by the ČSSD with 32.3%. The Social Democrats had undergone a dramatic development between 2002 and 2006, when its preferences had fallen to 10%. Thus, a gain of almost a third of the votes was a great success for the party. Even the Communists carried out a more professional campaign, offering two types of billboards: A black and white version introduced the problem, and a colourful version presented the solution. However, this did not prevent KSČM from falling to their usual level of 12.8% of the vote after their success in 2002. Other parties elected to the Chamber of 4  Among other things, they prompted the main colour of the party to change from yellow to orange.

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Deputies were KDU-ČSL—the coalition from the 2002 elections had disintegrated—and the Green Party (SZ). The 2010 elections were affected by the fall of Mirek Topolánek’s government in March 2009. Early elections were to held in May 2009; however, these were postponed to autumn 2009.5 Even this date was later cancelled due to the unconstitutional process of proclamation and the unwillingness of ČSSD to make elections happen in another way. Thus, the political parties found themselves conducting involuntary permanent campaigns for almost two years,6 which resulted in voters and politician fatigue as well as enormous financial costs. Another significant factor influencing the elections was the emergence of a new political party TOP 09, where many members and supporters of KDU-ČSL had moved, and an increase in the national significance of what had until recently only been a Prague local party Public Affairs (VV). TOP 09 presented itself as a centre-right party profiling on economic issues, responsible governance, and halting the country’s debt, while VV presented populist subjects with an accent on the revocability of politicians, the passing of general referendum legislation, and a commitment to the end the ‘political dinosaurs’, which was their label for the politicians of the time. In these elections, the Social Democrats also cooperated with PSB; however, this time the agency helped them set the strategy of the campaign at the beginning of 2010—the campaign itself was coordinated by the party. The idiosyncratic nature of Paroubek, who boycotted some media for a short period in the spring of 2010, affected the dynamics of the campaign. The television debates, strongly Paroubek’s domain in the 2006 elections, were problematic for him in 2010 when Petr Nečas, Topolánek’s successor as a leader of ODS, stood against him. Nečas was labelled ‘Mr Clean’ in the media, referring to the fact that he was polite and there were no scandals associated with him. This prevented Paroubek from personal attacks and the offensive style of leading debates he was used to with Topolánek. Both parties attacked each other through specialised micro-webpages: ‘Blue Disease’ attacking ODS, and ‘Paroubek Against You’ attacking ČSSD. The Civic Democrats’ campaign, especially its visuals, was strongly inspired by the British Conservatives. Their main campaign slogans were ‘Solving instead of frightening, offered by the 5  During this period, political advisor from the US Arthur J. Finkelstein cooperated with ODS. 6  Elections to the regional councils were held in October 2008, so the parties had started campaigning several months before.

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party for various areas such as justice, life, the prevention of debt, and so on, and ‘Hope for responsible politics’. For the first time, some parties also systematically communicated on Facebook and other social media. TOP 09 was more proficient at this. Neither ČSSD, with 22.1% of the vote count, nor ODS with 20.2% had been able to fully respond to the economic crisis in Greece and the fear that a similar situation could happen in the Czech Republic. The new parties were able to take advantage of the situation; TOP 09 got 16.7% and VV received 10.9% of the votes. Traditionally, Communists (11.3%) were also represented in the Chamber of Deputies (volby.cz 2010).

Recent Trends Early elections in 2013 were called because of a political crisis caused by police intervention at the Office of the Government due to suspicion the head of this office and Prime Minister Nečas’ future-wife, Jana Nagyová, had influenced the intelligence service. The event resulted in the resignation of the government. The lack of time, the unpreparedness of most of the political parties, and the magnificent rise of the political party ANO, led by the second richest man in the country, Andrej Babiš, were indisputable in the campaign and the election results: the elections were won by ČSSD with 20.5%; however, ANO placed second with 18.7% of the votes. The unpreparedness of the parties was reflected in the absence of strong socio-economic issues that had dominated the elections until then; the campaigns were instead led by calls to end the government coalitions of established parties (Havlík 2014). This was emphasised especially by ANO. Babiš’s political party had unlimited funds and so its campaign had been running since the spring to raise awareness among citizens. As it turned out, this meant a huge advantage when the early elections were called; whereas others had not even started to plan the campaign, ANO had already bought billboards and media. The only thing it had to do was to adjust its slogans to the changed situation. Another advantage was that Babiš owned an approx. thirty per cent share of the media market in the country. A similar narrative to ANO also unfolded for Tomio Okamura’s party, Dawn, adding the accent on direct democracy. Social media, especially Facebook and YouTube, have become an integral part of all party campaigns. Starting in the 2006 election (especially spots by ODS) and 2010 (by TOP 09), the main boom was in the 2013 when parties started to produce spots for the purpose of being shared on

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the Internet. Similarly, populism, which appeared in 2010 with VV, experienced a massive boom in 2013: Opposition to the establishment and fighting corruption as an all-encompassing theme were aspects which attracted voters to ANO and Dawn. Established parties lost in the election; the biggest losses were suffered by ODS and TOP 09—and, paradoxically, even ČSSD, which was in opposition at that time—because of the unpopular government coalition. On the contrary, KDU-ČSL returned to the Chamber of Deputies and the Communists were able to obtain larger support with 14.9 per cent of votes (volby.cz 2013). Prior to the 2017 elections, several political parties (ODS, ČSSD, TOP 09) innovated their visual style, modernised their logos, and so indicated the beginning of a ‘new era’. These parties tried to convince the public (and party members) that they had changed and drew an imaginary line between the past and the future. Moreover, the election took place under the new legislation described above. Another new situation was also the strength and position of political parties in the campaigns. The biggest rivals in this election were the coalition partners ČSSD and ANO, not the strongest representatives of the ruling coalition and opposition as it had been in previous decades. However, this fight was anything but even. During their four-year cooperation as a government, ANO gradually increased its voters support, whereas ČSSD’s backing trended in the opposite direction. And so, the situation on the Czech political scene seemed to be ‘all against one, and one against all’, where the one was ANO. This was not the only aspect distinguishing ANO from the others. The 2013–2017 period was characterised by a permanent campaign led by ANO setting the agenda for all parties—some of the issues were by design, others by circumstance (the prosecution of Andrej Babiš because of EU fund money fraud, controversial avoidance of the taxation of bonds, and his billions of crowns worth of business in biofuels, all which were tied to Babiš). Professional social media communication, permanent face-to-face campaigning, and the cooperation of Babiš’s media with his political ambitions were all aspects symptomatic of the period. Professionalisation, personalisation, as well as populist appeals have reached a new level in the Czech Republic. The lithium case7 was an example of Babiš’s team’s  An affair connected to the lithium mining memorandum. A so-called alternative media outlet Aeronet framed it as a way of bringing profit to ČSSD. Several political parties (ANO, KSČM, and SPD, a new extreme right-wing populist party founded by Tomio Okamura) incorporated the issue into their campaigns and called it ‘daylight robbery’. Lithium dominated not only the political parties’ communication but also their media discourse. 7

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ability to set and control the agenda, and it had a last-minute impact on the campaigns and probably the election results as well. Although not long after the election, the media discovered it was disinformation, the election had already taken place. The results brought nine parties to the Chamber of Deputies. ANO was able to attract almost 30% of the votes, ODS over 11%, newcomers the Pirates and SPD both over 10%, and another five parties (the Communists, ČSSD, KDU-ČSL, TOP 09, and the centrist party STAN, running together with TOP 09  in 2013) received 5–8% of votes.

Conclusion For two decades, the Czech Republic has been one of the post-communist countries with the most stable party system. However, the last decade has been characterised by a redrawing of the Czech political party map. These shifts also brought new impulses to the political marketing of the country. Many major shifts and changes (social media; permanent campaigning; populism; interconnections among political, economic, and media power; etc.) were associated with new political parties. There is a strong tradition of face-to-face campaigning in the Czech Republic, especially election meetings which have been happening since the early 1990s. On the other hand, door-to-door has not caught on as a regular campaign technique in the country—yet. Despite the massive advent of communication on the Internet and social media, all relevant parties use outdoor advertisements and, of these, mainly billboards (see Table 8.1). Alongside new political entities in the party system, campaigns are being more and more built on personalities, not manifestos. Andrej Babiš (ANO) has been the determining figure of Czech politics for the last five years, and much of the communication of ANO as well as other parties relates to his person. It is a question of how the investigation of his cases will turn out, whether and how it will affect his political career. The unknown is who would replace Babiš— established political parties hardly win their voters back, and ANO does not seem able to generate another leader. This potential situation may provide room for further political newcomers.

1996

Yes

Yes

ČSSD grew to the position of the main rival of ODS; sound bites of Zeman (ČSSD) vs. emphasis on politics (ODS).

200 seats from party lists. Threshold of 5% for party, 7%, 9%, or 11% for coalition of two, three, and four or more parties respectively. 200 seats from party lists. Threshold of 5% for party, 7%, 9%, or 11% for coalition of two, three, and four or more parties respectively.

1992a

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Premodern campaigns, strong position of ODS with vision (dominated campaigns), other parties had significantly smaller support.

200 seats from party The most visible was OF, other lists. Threshold of 5%. parties rather drab; all against Communists.

Basic campaign characteristics

1990a

Year of Electoral system election

Table 8.1  Evolution of Campaigning in the Czech Republic

Criticism vs. defence of economic reforms.

No

(continued)

Yes

No

No

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Transformation from Yes communism— elections perceived as a referendum on communism. Socio-economic No cleavage, how to deal with necessary reforms.

Main campaign topics

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2006

2002

Early elections—parties did not have Yes enough time. Campaigns almost the same as in 1996.

200 seats from party lists. Threshold of 5% for party, 7%, 9%, or 11% for coalition of two, three, and four or more parties respectively. 200 seats from party lists. Threshold of 5% for party, 10%, 15% or 20% for coalition of two, three, four and more parties respectively. 200 seats from party lists. Threshold of 5% for party, 10%, 15%, or 20% for coalition of two, three, and four or more parties respectively. Professionalisation, foreign consultants, emphasis on TV spots (ODS), rise of negativity.

Yes

Two main rivals were able to form a Yes coalition, strongest support to Communists since 1989, stronger emphasis on meetings with voters face-to-face.

Yes

No

Yes

Issues Candidates

1998

Campaign focus

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 8.1 (continued)

No

Yes

Dissatisfaction with two main parties after their cooperation.

New leaders of ČSSD and ODS, ČSSD integrated again after crisis.

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Scandals of ODS No (dubious financing of the party)— personalised in Klaus, criticism of economical reforms.

Main campaign topics

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2017

2013

Babiš (ANO) accused of money fraud—prosecuted, therefore, all campaigns were focused on him; new parties (Pirates and far-right populists)

Emergence on new parties, decrease Yes of support for two main parties, permanent campaign (many elections and changing dates of parliamentary election) and, therefore, giant campaign costs and tired voters, populism on the rise. Professional marketing of ANO, Yes celebrities running for offices, another populist party, third-party campaign (reconstruction of the state).

200 seats from party lists. Threshold of 5% for party, 10%, 15%, or 20% for coalition of two, three, and four or more parties respectively. 200 seats from party lists. Threshold of 5% for party, 10%, 15%, or 20% for coalition of two, three, and four or more parties respectively. 200 seats from party lists. Threshold of 5% for party, 10%, 15%, or 20% for coalition of two, three, and four or more parties respectively. No

Yes

No

Yes

Issues Candidates

2010

Campaign focus

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 8.1 (continued)

Yes

The main competitors were coalition partners, fragmented opposition.

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Early election, Yes anti-establishment and anti-corruption appeal, crisis of right-wing parties.

Economic crisis and risk of the ‘Greece way’—bankruptcy of the country.

Main campaign topics

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Posters, leaflets.

Posters, leaflets, billboards, advertisement in the press. Mainly billboards, posters, leaflets, advertisement in the press.

Mainly billboards, posters, leaflets, advertisement in the the press. Mainly billboards, posters, leaflets, advertisement in the press.

1990a

1992a

1998

2002

1996

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 8.1 (continued)

Canvasing, rallies, bus tour No (Zeman —ČSSD), spots on Česká televize and Czech Radio (public). Canvasing, rallies, concerts, Not really on Česká televize and Czech Radio (public).

Canvasing, rallies, spots on No Czechoslovakian TV and Czechoslovakian radio (public). Canvasing, rallies, spots on No Czechoslovakian TV and Czechoslovakian radio (public). Canvasing, rallies, bus tour No (Zeman —ČSSD), spots on Česká televize and Czech Radio (public).

Types of campaign activities Use of polling and research techniques?

No

No

No

No

No

Campaign spending limits

Yes (the same rules as previous elections)

14 hours for spots on Česká televize and Czech Radio, plus several debates. Yes (the same rules as previous elections)

Yes

Yes

Free airtime on public media

Notes

(continued)

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

Possibility to buy airtime

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Canvasing, rallies, concerts, Yes spots on Česká televize and Czech Radio (public) as well as on YouTube. Canvasing, rallies, spots on Yes Česká televize and Czech Radio (public service) as well as on YouTube. Canvasing, rallies, spots on Yes Česká televize and Czech Radio (public service) as well as on YouTube.

Canvasing, rallies, concerts, Yes (mainly on Česká televize and ČSSD) Czech Radio (public).

Types of campaign activities Use of polling and research techniques?

Yes (90 million CZK)

No

No

No

Campaign spending limits

Yes (the same rules as previous elections)

Yes (the same rules as previous elections)

Yes (the same rules as previous elections)

Yes (the same rules as previous elections)

Free airtime on public media

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

No for TV or radio. Yes for the press.

Possibility to buy airtime

Notes

a

Elections were in Czechoslovakia, not the Czech Republic yet. The information here reflect elections and campaigns to the Czech National Council which represents the predecessor of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower chamber of the Parliament of the Czech Republic

2017

2013

Partly billboards, leaflets, advertisement in the press, and social media.

Mainly billboards, posters, leaflets, advertisement in the press, and web pages. Mainly billboards, leaflets, advertisement in the press, web pages, and social media. Billboards, leaflets, advertisement in the press, and social media.

2006

2010

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 8.1 (continued)

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References Act no. 247/1995 Coll. on Election to the Parliament of the Czech Republic. Sbírka zákonů. 27. 9. 1995. http://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/cs/1995-247/ zneni-0. Accessed 20 June 2019. Act no. 424/1991 Coll. on Assembly in Political Parties and Movements. Sbírka zákonů. 2. 10. 1991. http://aplikace.mvcr.cz/sbirkazakonu/ViewFile.aspx? type=c&id=2493. Accessed 20 June 2019. Eibl, Otto, and Miloš Gregor, eds. 2019. Volby do Poslanecké sněmovny 2017. Brno: CDK. Havlík, Vlastimil, ed. 2014. Volby do Poslanecké sněmovny 2013. Brno: MUNIPRESS. Kopeček, Lubomír. 2015. Deformace demokracie? Opoziční smlouva a česká politika 1998–2002. Brno: Barrister & Principal. Matušková, Anna. 2006. Volební kampaň 2006: nástup politického marketingu do České republiky. In Volby do Poslanecké sněmovny v roce 2006, ed. Tomáš Foltýn, Dalibor Čaloud, Vlastimil Havlík, and Anna Matušková, 21–41. Brno: CDK. Šedo, Jakub. 2007. Volební systémy postkomunistických zemí. Brno: CDK. Soukeník, Štěpán, Miloš Gregor, and Anna Matušková. 2017. Czech Republic. In Lobbying in Europe: Public Affairs and the Lobbying Industry in 28 EU Countries, ed. Alberto Bitonti and Phil Harris, 103–111. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Volby.cz. 2002. Election for the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic Held on 14–15 June 2002. https://volby.cz/pls/ps2002/ ps2?xjazyk=EN. ———. 2006. Elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic Held on 02–03 June 2006. https://volby.cz/pls/ps2006/ ps?xjazyk=EN. Accessed 1 Feb 2019. ———. 2010. Election for the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic Held on 28–29 May 2010. https://volby.cz/pls/ps2010/ ps2?xjazyk=EN. Accessed 1 Feb 2019. ———. 2013. Election for the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic Held on 25–26 October 2013. https://volby.cz/pls/ps2013/ ps2?xjazyk=EN. Accessed 1 Feb 2019.

CHAPTER 9

Hungary Balazs Kiss and Gabriella Szabo

Country Overview Between 1988 and 1990, after forty years of communist rule, Hungary changed its political and social system. For the first time since 1956, parties were founded or revived after decades of prohibition. In 1989, a referendum decided against the direct election of the president of the republic, whereby parties became the prominent players in politics in general, and in campaigns in particular. Over the following years, a democratic political system was established where alternating governments of centre-right and socialist-liberal coalitions filled their full terms of office. Euro-Atlantic integration received special emphasis and Hungary’s membership in NATO (1999) and the European Union (2004) was the prime objective of all the main parties.

The observations of the chapter are derived from the data of several projects of the Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (https:// politologia.tk.mta.hu/en/finished-projects). B. Kiss (*) • G. Szabo Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_9

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The party system between 1990 and 2010 was remarkably stable in the sense that the party composition of the parliament hardly changed, and electoral volatility was comparatively low (Ilonszki and Papp 2012). Until 2002, the right was divided and the left relatively united. Since 2006, and particularly since 2010, however, it has been exactly the other way around. In the autumn of 2006, a secret speech made by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány at a meeting with socialist MPs was leaked. In the speech, he admitted to lying to the general public since 2004 about the economic conditions in Hungary. The surfacing of the speech resulted in nationwide protests. The failed economic policy before and after the 2008 global economic crisis also undermined trust in public institutions and led to the landslide victory of the centre-right Fidesz—Hungarian Civic Alliance (hereafter just Fidesz) in 2010. The new majority and government radically transformed the country: It implemented unorthodox economic policy measures, prepared a new constitution, and changed the conditions under which politics and elections as well as campaigns must take place. The efforts proved successful. In 2014 and 2018, the right-wing party coalition supporting the incumbent government led by Viktor Orbán was able to achieve a two-thirds majority for the second and third time in a row. Hungary may therefore be considered a dominant-party system, where Fidesz’s defeat is unlikely for the foreseeable future particularly because of the deep division between the opposition parties. The key constitutional and legal condition for campaigning is that legislative power is vested in a unicameral parliament and executive power is exercised by a prime minister-led government. Therefore, the most highprofile political campaigns in Hungary focus on parliamentary elections every four years.

Legal Framework Since 1990, the country has had a combined electoral system: The electors have two votes, one through which they can support a party list and another through which they elect representatives put forth by the parties. Until 2014, the House of Parliament had 386 members and 199 afterwards; fifty-three per cent come from single-seat constituencies and the rest from the party lists. The election threshold is five per cent. Since 2012, there has been no campaign silence period on election day or the day before except in public spaces within 150 metres of a polling station.

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It is also prohibited to publish exit polls before 7:00 p.m. or before the last queuing voter has cast their vote on election day. The regulations were first applied during the 2014 general elections campaign. One of the most debated issues is finances, and in particular the use of state resources during the campaign. Nowadays, the majority of party revenues comes from the state budget, and only a small part from party members and individual donations; only natural persons with Hungarian nationality are allowed to donate. The Campaign Finance Act limits the amount that can be spent during the campaign period. There is a major challenge with regard to state subsidies: Candidates who do not receive at least two per cent of the votes must return all funding. Parties are also eligible for budget funds on top of the one million forints given directly by the Hungarian State Treasury. The amount depends on how many single-­ member constituencies for which the party was able to offer a candidate. The new rules allow a total campaign spending limit of 995 million HUF (ca. 3 million EUR) for parties compared to 386 million HUF previously. Experts say that the lack of transparency in campaign finances jeopardises the public audit safety process; Transparency International (2015) advocates for a separate bank account at the Hungarian State Treasury to monitor the expenditure of each candidate and party. Another issue is fair and equal access to the media during the campaign. The public broadcaster is obliged to provide free airtime to all contestants on an equal basis. After the 2018 election campaign, it was claimed that public media had by and large met the requirements to cover all candidates in the special campaign bloc, but the overall news programmes were clearly biased towards governmental forces. Private media is no longer entitled to air paid political advertisements; they, however, can provide free-of-charge time to electoral contestants. Print media can sell paid political advertisements only if the price list has been published in advance.

A Historical Overview of Campaigns Soon after 1990, all the main parties learned how to campaign. Step by step, particularly in opposition when they had time and felt the need to advance, they developed a complete professional mindset and arsenal. In the following, we provide some details concerning the main components of Hungary’s campaigns over the past thirty years, including market segmentation, positioning, strategy, messages, candidates, campaign staff and organisation, the use of media, and other means.

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Segmentation Opinion polling started as early as the 1970s in Hungary, and it was, therefore, not difficult for the parties to find knowledgeable experts for political analyses, be they on market intelligence, tracking reactions, or exit polls. The more money the parties had, the more detailed analyses they asked for in order to know the political atmosphere in general and in some specific electoral districts. More often than not, the big right-wing parties targeted the middle class, the young and religious people, and in-country voters more enthusiastic about national feelings while remaining attentive to the conditions of the Hungarians living beyond the borders. Left-wing parties focused rather on the poor and the richest people, a large part of the latter coming from the second echelon of the state apparatus before 1990 anyway. They also leaned on the dwellers of the large cities—Budapest, above all—and people who did not care for symbolic and ideological questions. By around 2000, the two camps had become equally strong, and they started to target voters from new segments: The left aimed towards the young and the right towards the poor. Smaller parties chose specific segments. The liberal Alliance of Free Democrats, having dropped from second place between 1990 and 1994, realised that the most it could strive for was ten per cent of the voters, who were liberals themselves even if unknowingly. Another smaller party targeted the peasants fairly successfully until 2000, while a Christian democratic party has addressed religious people with varying success. Seeing the overwhelming popularity of Fidesz and the stability of its core supporters, the left tried to mobilise new voters in 2018. Interestingly enough, the mobilisation resulted in more votes for Fidesz than in 2014, suggesting that the dominant party still has reserves among the citizenry. Strategy After market analyses, parties segment the electorate and, next, prepare a campaign strategy. By strategy, we mean a systematic plan on the steps to be implemented from the time of the market analysis to the election day. It covers the timing, the positioning, the message, the selection of candidates, and the use of campaign media. We present timing here, and the rest in the following subchapters.

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Campaigns have become very long since 1990, almost always exceeding the official length. Some have taken roughly three-quarters of a year. However, the anti-immigration campaign run by the government started in 2015 and turned into the electoral campaign of the coalition in early 2018—definitively the longest campaign in Hungarian history. The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) named their candidate for the position of prime minister more than a year before the elections and Momentum, a new party, also started its first campaign in early 2017. The parties usually time their steps. For example, the campaign running up to the 2006 spring elections started with identity building by both big parties. Already in the autumn of 2005, MSZP suggested a new dynamic identity open to the youth while Fidesz made signs of regretting the mistakes it had made in government, thereby projecting a morally high-­ soaring self. Then Fidesz erected posters claiming that people were living worse than four years before, and afterwards, that is, following the negative messages, it communicated promises. Positioning For twenty years, the left-right division was generally accepted as a suitable metaphor for the Hungarian political space. Each party publicly identified itself as either left-wing or right-wing. Although they had previously been fierce enemies, the liberals joined MSZP, but they could not identify as right-wing. Fidesz joined the right and there became the ruling party, however critical it used to be towards the right-wing coalition in government from 1990 to 1994. By commencing to target the poor after 2002 and obtaining a two-­ thirds majority in 2010, Fidesz declared that a new, centralised political space had been established by the voters, wherein a big party occupies the central position and all the rest are circling around it finding a place according to the issues on the agenda. The left-right division, hence, makes no sense anymore, particularly in the sense that there must be consensus on some common national issues, like the responsibility for Hungarians living abroad or the sovereignty of the state even vis-à-vis the European institutions. Time and again, new parties have also questioned the left-right division. Ever since, politics and campaigns in Hungary have been about whether the centralised space still exists. Thus, the opposition wants to return to

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left-right positioning because that suggests a more equal balance of forces, while Fidesz wants to keep its central position by claiming that the right-­ wing coalition is the only one capable of governing. Hence, Fidesz addresses all the strata and groups of society during the campaigns and the rest have so far turned to people who dislike the governing parties. In that sense, the positioning follows the intentions of Fidesz. Messages For the first twenty years, the parties made specific promises to get support from the citizenry. Since 2010, however, all Fidesz pledges have been simple continuations. Not surprisingly, criticism regarding the communist period and the promise to leap beyond were the main theme of the 1990 campaigns. The strongest right-wing party won the election because it also promised a smooth transition, whereas the second biggest wanted a radical shift in policies. The transition was not smooth at all, and the governing coalition started to apply symbolic remedies for the ones suffering most. In 1994, the future winner promised rule by expertise. This followed a period when the government was said to have been more interested in symbolic politics than real governance. That contrast—that is, the right has always indulged in ideology and symbols, while the left has the necessary expertise—was recurrent until 2014 as a self-characterisation on the left and as a criticism against the right. In 1998, the right claimed that the left served big capital instead of the people, while the left recommended continuation, saying the country was on the right track. 2002 brought on a surprisingly fierce campaign and the first intensely negative one, mainly enacted by the left. Following the old pattern, MSZP proposed the finance minister rise to the post of prime minister so that expertise could rule again. He promised a rapid increase in the standard of living, for example, a fifty per cent rise in the salaries of public servants. The right referred to economic and symbolic successes and said that big business and international capital would rule if the left won. In 2006, the left promised further economic blooming based on funds obtained by the prime minister from the European Commission, while the right described a country where not only the (left-wing) elite would prosper but the poor as well.

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The 2010 campaign was rather simple and not about promises because the right-wing victory was certain; the only issue was whether the right would get a two-thirds majority or less. According to the constitution, two-thirds in the parliament is enough to change anything, including the constitution itself. In 2014, the governing parties did not promise anything specific, only the continuation of the allegedly successful transformation of the country. The opposition, for their part, declared the will to turn back the anti-­ democratic tendencies started by the Orbán government. Finally, in 2018, the governing parties again did not make any specific promises except the protection of the country from immigration and from the questionable politics of Brussels. The opposition did not have much in common apart from accusing Fidesz of corruption and criticising the government for the deterioration of public education and health services. This overview shows that negative campaigning has been pronounced for thirty years now. It has become more intense whenever the difference between the two blocks was too small or a camp was united, not on positive basis but, by hatred towards the other. Candidates Personalisation has been another unambiguous tendency in campaigning. The right was the first to find a real leader in the person of Viktor Orbán. By 2002, he had become the undisputed leading politician of Fidesz and their allies within the camp. It has had the inevitable effect of making him the opposition’s uniting force as well; the parties and politicians cannot agree on anything but their common enemy. Indeed, the opposition—even the left-wing opposition—has proved unable to find a similar leader except Ferenc Gyurcsány, the socialist prime minister from 2004 to 2009. His trajectory led, however, from a victorious peak in 2006 to a very grave crisis in the same year. Moreover, he did not retire from politics even after the 2010 collapse of MSZP; thus, Fidesz associates all possible left-wing leaders with his person and failure ever since. From 2006 to 2018, the Jobbik Movement for a Better Hungary (herein referred to as Jobbik) chairman, Gábor Vona, was accepted without reservation within his party and political community; however, he found little support from any other party.

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Staff and Organisation Building Since the middle of the 1990s, more and more parties have hired campaign experts. Fidesz chose a Hungarian one, originally a physician, but gifted enough to bring victory to the party in 1998 against all odds. MSZP reacted by inviting an Israeli American advisor who proved so useful that he stayed with the party for years after the unexpected victory in 2002. Campaign managers of Hungarian origin entered the scene in the 2000s— some established small companies and gave advice to parties in other countries as well. Foreign advisors were present around the bigger parties in 2018 too. The size of the parties has not grown, with MSZP actually even shrinking; they have had to recruit activists during the campaign periods. These have grown steadily since 2002, when the left allegedly won through contact marketing; that is, by canvassing potential supporters at home and in the streets. The parties started to train the activists too, so that the campaigns could become even more efficient. Media and Other Channels Because of the small size of the parties, for a long time, television advertisements were the most important form of media. All the other usual channels were also used: print, radio, and internet, although internet penetration was rather low in Hungary until the mid-2000s. Recent changes in campaign regulations have resulted in the proliferation of billboard campaigns as well as the use of internet advertisements and social media. The first direct mail was sent out by the late 2001 socialist candidate for prime minister, Péter Medgyessy, and since then, the Fidesz government has used this method most frequently under the name of national consultation. A special kind of direct mail is the monthly public utilities’ bills, which has informed citizens of their savings since early 2013 when the government introduced measures to decrease the rates. Lately, internet penetration and the possession of mobile phones have become remarkably high, which has opened new channels for campaigning. In most cases, Ferenc Gyurcsány has been the first to try new ways: In 2005, he launched an online political game for young people; in 2014, one could communicate with him via a mobile application; and, recently, he has been active on social media as well. Fidesz has been very efficient in organising rallies since 2002. In a number of cases, hundreds of thousands of people have participated in the

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events, which has had a great effect on their rivals, particularly when such rallies—so-called peace marches—continued even after 2010 when the party took power. Jobbik regularly ends rallies with rock concerts. All the parties have always used door-to-door campaigns because they have had to collect slips signed by citizens in order to run candidates in districts and put forward party lists for the election.

Recent Trends Although campaigns officially begin fifty days prior to the election day, due to a blurring of the lines between campaigning and governing, the experience of politics in Hungary is one of permanent campaigning. Governments use marketing techniques extensively and continuously target the citizenry through means of communications. The Mainstreaming of Relationship Marketing: National Consultations Hungarian campaigning does not end on the day of elections either; it begins well before and continues on after the elections. To maintain the level of engagement and to create a stable connection with voters, the parties in government since 2010 heavily rely on the mindset and techniques of relationship marketing. Although Fidesz was not the first party to launch direct mail action, it made relationship marketing mainstream after 2010. The series of national consultations, which are questionnaires on current policy issues sent to each Hungarian citizen of voting age, started after the Orbán government came to power. As of 2018, eight national consultations have taken place with remarkably high response rates, from seven hundred thousand to 2.2 million respondents in a country of eight million voters. The consultation letters, sent out by the Prime Minister’s Office, ask for people’s opinion as well as their email addresses in case they want to keep in touch with the government. The visuals in the direct mails match the imagery of the government, and the foreword is always written as if by the prime minister himself. In 2010, the questionnaire was on pensions and financial subsidies for elderly people; in February 2011, on points of the future constitution; in May, on social security; and in 2012, macroeconomic issues such as minimum wages, taxation, and social benefits and compensation for mortgage credit consumers was included. The 2015 national consultation on

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immigration and terrorism was connected to the government’s anti-­ immigration campaign, which had started right after the terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The next started in April 2017 and was related to Hungary’s relationship with the European Union—whether Hungarian citizens wanted to allow the European Union to intervene in the internal affairs on the country—and referred to foreign-supported NGOs as threatening sovereignty. In October of the same year, a national consultation on the so-called ‘Soros-plan’ was launched, and in 2018, another was produced about family policy. The national consultation on the Soros-plan reportedly received a record 2,238,925 responses. Although observers have always criticised the questions and response choices as heavily biased and misleading (Bocskor 2018), the government has declared that the responses provide the basis and justification for governmental measures. The Revival of Premodern Tools: Billboards, Petitions, Signature Gatherings Several premodern campaign tools (see Norris 2002) were deployed between 2014 and 2018. In 2015, in order to draw the citizens’ attention to the national consultation on immigration, the Hungarian government placed billboards throughout the country with messages seemingly addressed to immigrants but in the Hungarian language, for example, ‘If you come to Hungary you cannot take the jobs of Hungarians.’ In a later stage of the anti-immigration communication, the government launched a nationwide billboard and television campaign targeting George Soros, a billionaire Hungarian-US citizen, who allegedly promoted and even organised immigration into the European Union through Hungary. The campaign used the image of a laughing Soros with the slogan ‘We should not let Soros laugh last!’ on thousands of billboards and public transport vehicles around the country so that people could not escape the message. The radical right-wing Jobbik also had a series of billboard campaigns in 2017. In April, the messages accused Prime Minister Orbán and his government of stealing, and in September, the posters tried to convince voters of the personal competencies of Gábor Vona, the leader of the party, in striving against the government. To counter the anti-immigration messages, the Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Party—a joke party—produced posters, stencils, and graffiti which parodied the style and content of the government communications.

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The most influential political action of the left-leaning oppositional forces was the signature gathering of the Momentum Movement in 2017. It aimed to force decision-makers to withdraw Budapest’s application for the 2026 Olympic Games. The openly anti-government movement was able to collect more than 266 thousand signatures, which led the government to drop the bid. New Platforms, New Participants: Social Media and Citizens In Hungary, Facebook is the most popular social media platform: The majority of politicians and parties use the platform actively and strategically to reach citizens (Bene and Somodi 2018). There are however differences between parties in the adoption of social media. In 2018, ninety-nine per cent of Jobbik candidates owned and regularly updated their personal Facebook pages. Similarly, the numbers were high in the case of Fidesz’s candidates: eighty-eight per cent. On the left side of the political spectrum, the Momentum Movement and MSZP had the most: ninety-five and eightytwo per cent respectively (Bene and Farkas 2018, 415). Prime Minister Orbán and Gábor Vona were the most successful politicians on Facebook with more than five hundred thousand followers each. During the 2018 campaign, the numbers of followers’ reactions (shares, likes, comments) were also highest on the profiles of Orbán and Vona. For many voters, Facebook is the pathway for getting information on current affairs, whereas so far Twitter and Instagram have remained marginal (Bene and Farkas 2018).

Conclusion The evolution of campaigning demonstrates that political marketing has penetrated politics in Hungary (see Table 9.1). The widespread use of relationship marketing—that is, persistent connections between parties and engaged citizens—may be considered the most current form. Election campaigns have also revealed that communication channels are not neutral. On the one hand, content is heavily curated on social media, and Facebook’s free-­speech dilemma shows that social media is not necessary to stimulate democracy. On the other hand, one could notice that news media in Hungary is not only biased but some of them have taken over the role of oppositional parties in countering the narratives of the government. These phenomena urge the research to move beyond notions of political parallelism and the propaganda model. For a better understanding of politics and campaigning, one should rather seek the signs and impact of media, post-objectivity.

Combined system: 210 seats from party lists + 176 individual electoral districts. Threshold of 4%. Combined system: 210 seats from party lists + 176 individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5%. Combined system: 210 seats from party lists + 176 individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5%. Combined system: 210 seats from party lists + 176 individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5%.

1990

2002

1998

1994

Electoral system

Year of election

No

Fiercely polarised.

Yes

Rather quiet campaign Yes with a peak: The televised debate between the two candidates for PM.

Low level of personalisation: The leftist PM candidate kept concealed.

Yes

No

No

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Conflicts among the new Yes parties.

Basic campaign characteristics

Table 9.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Hungary

No

How to raise the standard of living.

Yes

Stop the deterioration of the No standard of living vs. continuation of governance from the left.

Expertise versus ideology. Anticommunism, relation to the past.

(continued)

Yes

Yes

No

No

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Criticism regarding state socialist No system. A smooth transition versus fast and radical transformation.

Main campaign topics

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Combined system: 210 seats from party lists + 176 individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5%. Combined system: 210 seats from party lists + 176 individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5%. Combined system: 93 seats from party lists + 106 individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5%. Combined system: 93 seat from party lists + 106 individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5%.

2006

2018

2014

2010

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 9.1 (continued)

Yes

United central right vs. a soaring radical right and a fragmented left.

United central right vs. fragmented left, which tried to run together.

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Support for and against a Yes two-thirds majority of the right.

Fiercely polarised.

Basic campaign characteristics

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

The radical transformation of the Yes political and economic systems vs. hindering the right to have a two-thirds majority in the parliament. The continuation of the Yes transformation vs. getting rid of Viktor Orbán. Sovereignty of Hungary versus more Europeanisation. The continuation of the Yes transformation, ban on immigration vs. getting rid of Viktor Orbán, improvement of education and health services. Sovereignty of Hungary vs. more Europeanisation.

Modernisation of Hungary with the help of EU funds.

Main campaign topics

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Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media, newsletters via Web 1.0

1994

1998

2002

2006

Billboards, leaflets, ads in the electronic media (public only).

1990

Rallies, canvassing. Candidates’ debates on public television.

Rallies, canvassing. Candidates’ debates on public television.

Rallies, canvassing.

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

Yes

Use of polling and research techniques?

Rallies, canvassing. Yes Candidates and party chairs debates on public television. Billboards, leaflets, ads Rallies, canvassing. Yes in electronic media, Candidates’ debates newsletters via Web 1.0. on public television.

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 9.1 (continued)

Yes. 386 million HUF per party. Yes. 386 million HUF per party. Yes. 386 million HUF per party. Yes. 386 million HUF per party. Yes. 386 million HUF per party. Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Campaign Free Possibility spending limits airtime on to buy public airtime media

(continued)

Mobilisation via ICT (SMS messages).

Mobilisation via ICT (SMS messages).

Notes

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2018

2014

Billboards, leaflets, ads Rallies, canvassing. in electronic media, Web 1.0 and 2.0, use of Facebook. Billboards, leaflets, ads Rallies, canvassing. in Web 1.0 and 2.0, intensive use of Facebook. Billboards, leaflets, ads Rallies, canvassing. in Web 1.0 and 2.0, intensive use of Facebook.

2010

Types of campaign activities

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 9.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Use of polling and research techniques? Yes. 386 million HUF per party. Yes. 995 million HUF per party. Yes. 995 million HUF per party. Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Campaign Free Possibility spending limits airtime on to buy public airtime media

Mobilisation via social media.

Mobilisation via social media.

Mobilisation via social media.

Notes

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References Bene, Márton, and Xénia Farkas. 2018. Kövesd, reagálj, oszd meg! In Várakozások és Valóságok. Parlamenti Választás 2018, ed. Andrea Szabó and Balázs Böcskei, 410–437. Budapest: Napvilág. Bene, Márton, and Dániel Somodi. 2018. ‘Mintha lenne saját médiánk…’. A kis pártok és a közösségi media. Médiakutató. Summer/2018, 7–20. http://epa. oszk.hu/03000/03056/00069/pdf/EPA03056_mediakutato_2018_ nyar_007-020.pdf. Accessed 20 June 2019. Bocskor, Ákos. 2018. Anti-Immigration Discourses in Hungary During the ‘Crisis’ Year: The Orbán Government’s ‘National Consultation’ Campaign of 2015. Sociology 52 (3): 551–568. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803 8518762081. Ilonszki, Gabriella, and Zsófia Papp. 2012. The Paradoxes of Parliament-Citizen Connections. A Window on the Political System. Journal of Legislative Studies 18 (3–4): 334–350. Norris, Pippa. 2002. Campaign Communication. In Comparing Democracies 2. Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, ed. Lawrence LeDuc, Richard Niemi, and Pippa Norris. London: Sage. Transparency International (Hungary). 2015. Transparency in Campaign Spending 2014–2015. https://transparency.hu/en/news/kampanykoltesekatlathatosaga-2014-2015-ben/. Accessed 20 June 2019.

CHAPTER 10

Poland Wojciech Cwalina and Milena Drzewiecka

Country Overview Although many observers point to 1989 as the birth of democracy in Poland, this is not strictly true. The year 1989 can be treated only as a revival of democracy in Polish history (Cwalina 2008). The continued decline in living standards led to waves of strikes throughout Poland beginning in the spring of 1988. In April 1989, party and opposition leaders reached an agreement on a number of unprecedented concessions and a partially free election was scheduled for June 1989. The transition from a socialist country to a democratic state was finalised in March 1999 when Poland became a full member of NATO and, subsequently, a member of the European Union in May 2004. The politics of Poland takes place in the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the prime minister is the head of government and of a multiparty system. Therefore, in the parliamentary, W. Cwalina (*) Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland e-mail: [email protected] M. Drzewiecka SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warszawa, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_10

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presidential, local, and European Parliament elections, candidates supported by significant political parties have a better chance of success (Cwalina et al. 2011). The day (4 June 1989) when the first, not yet fully democratic parliamentary elections took place in Poland can be said to mark the birth of political communication and marketing in post-communist states (Falkowski and Cwalina 2004). Together with the political changes, the media system changed. These changes concerned both the legal regulations of the media market and its introduction to commercial broadcasters (Cwalina and Falkowski 2006; Cwalina et al. 1999).

Legal Framework Elections in Poland are conducted under a legal framework which comprise the 1997 Constitution (Konstytucja 1997), the 2011 Election Code (Act No. 21/2011), the 1997 Political Parties Law (Act No. 98/1997), the 1992 Broadcasting Act (Act No. 7/1993), the 1984 Press Law (Act No. 5/1984), and other secondary legislation. The elections are administered by the National Election Commission (NEC). The election campaign starts after elections are announced by an official in charge, the lists of candidates are registered by the NEC, and finishes twenty-four hours before election day. It usually lasts around three months. All campaign materials (billboards, television spots, etc.) must visibly indicate the name of the electoral committee in charge. If campaign materials contain false information, a candidate or his agent may apply to the regional court for an appropriate measure (for example, the confiscation of such materials, an order to apologise to the person libelled), and such cases should be examined within twenty-four hours. Candidates often use this procedure in Poland. The apology, if ruled, must be published within forty-eight hours. Starting twenty-four hours before the election until the end of the election (usually 9:00 p.m.), publishing poll results is forbidden. Although candidates and the press mostly obey election silence, the law tends to be abused on the Internet and social media. Only the electoral committee has the right to participate in an election. An electoral committee of a political party (or coalition of political parties) is not allowed to raise funds from any source other than the political party’s own election fund. In the case of electoral committees set up by organisations and voters, funds may only come from the contributions of individuals and bank loans taken out by these committees. In the case of

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presidential elections, a mixed type of financing is possible. There are ­certain limits to campaign expenditures: for the Sejm it is PLN 0.82 per voter (appx. EUR 0.20),1 for the Senate PLN 0.18 (EUR 0.05), and for presidential elections PLN 0.60 (EUR 0.14). Voters can donate up to fifteen times the minimum wage,2 and candidates who run in parliamentary or presidential elections can do so up to forty-five times. Donations to electoral committees must be made by bank transfer, credit card, or cheque. Moreover, committees are not allowed to spend more than eighty percent of their spending limit on advertising activities (such as billboards or television spots). Within three months of an election each electoral committee is obliged to submit a financial report to the NEC. Only approved financial reports guarantee the appropriate amount of subsidies and subvention. Expenses for presidential campaigns are not compensated by state subsidies. Public media is obliged to provide free airtime for election spots. The time differs depending on channel and election type and was described in detail in 2011. Nonetheless parties are allowed to buy airtime on electronic media. Both public and private media are obliged to provide the same conditions to all electoral candidates for their political advertising.

Historical Overview of Campaigns The first election campaigns led by political parties in parliamentary elections (1991, 1993, 1997, and 2001) were relatively unprofessional. This was caused by both a significant fragmentation of the Polish political scene and the limited financial resources of parties and candidates (Cwalina et al. 2012). In the 1991 elections, sixty-three election committees had candidates, of which twenty-nine were in parliament. After the amendment of the electoral law, nineteen parties participated in 1993 and eight sat in parliament. It was not until the next election that the political scene began to stabilise. There were ten parties in both the 1997 and 2001 elections, but some of them were new; a characteristic of this period was the fact that new parties were often formed and existing ones divided due to internal conflicts. The dominant electoral form of communication was to rely on traditional printed materials (leaflets, posters, and billboards), direct campaigning (meetings and election conventions), television debates, and, above 1 2

 Per voter in each constituency where an electoral committee registers a list.  According to Eurostat, in January 2019 the minimum wage in Poland was 523 euros.

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all, free television commercials (Cwalina and Falkowski 2005). These campaigns were often reactive. They focused on current events and issues prevailing in the media. In 1997, the parliamentary campaign was dominated by the topics of floods and errors committed by the left-wing Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) government in dealing with their catastrophic consequences (Pieńkowski and Baryła 1999). The main effects of the election campaigns, especially advertising campaigns, were the consolidation and deepening of ideological divisions among voters and an increase in the feeling of uncertainty and indecisiveness (Cwalina and Falkowski 2000; 2008; Cwalina et  al. 2000, 2005; Cwalina et  al. 2006). Advertisements weakened already existing voting preferences and, in some cases, even caused them to change. It seems that Polish voters were less familiar with the newly introduced political marketing strategies, perhaps heightening their feeling of uncertainty. They lacked the persuasive knowledge concerning politicians’ goals and tactics, as well as how to skilfully cope with them (Friestad and Wright 1994). In the campaign’s messages, emotional appeals (including apprehensive ones; for example, drawing upon fear of the social and political effects of Poland’s accession to the European Union) and morals (such as the legalisation of abortion) dominated logical appeals (clear stands on political issues). As a result, from election to election, campaigns were also more and more negative (Cwalina and Falkowski 2006). Critical Elections in 2005 In 2005, Poland witnessed critical elections which would change the political landscape and influenced all the campaigns to come. Law and Justice (PiS) launched an unprecedented campaign to reform the country’s entire constitutional order. This idea, labelled the ‘Fourth Republic’ (the successor to the post-socialist Third Republic as they labelled the 1997 constitution), dominated both presidential and parliamentary campaigns. The promises to ‘clean up’ Polish politics and break with the corruption associated with the former communist government were attractive issues at the time and PiS successfully followed the polls and voters’ need for security and moral order. The negative campaign, however, was also focused on Civic Platform (PO), which was expected to be a future coalition partner. A television spot in which food disappears from a fridge and toys from a children’s room helped PiS contrast their pro-socialist face with the dangers of a free market and the liberal economics promoted by PO.  The

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most remarkable moment from the negative presidential campaign came before the first round. PiS campaigner Jacek Kurski shared with the press gossip that Donald Tusk, the grandfather of PO and a candidate, had voluntarily joined the army of Nazi Germany. Despite explanations, the stigma ‘grandpa from Wehrmacht’ did its job, evoking stereotypes and supporting the message that Tusk would represent not Polish but German interests. Traditional media, outdoor, and big rallies served as the main campaign platforms where PiS’s hard approach contrasted with PO’s soft approach. The negative PiS television advertisements even took the form of action films. It was therefore in this election that the term spin doctor was introduced to the public for the first time as two young PiS politicians (Michał Kamiński and Adam Bielan) prepared victorious PiS campaigns. 2007 Parliamentary Campaign In 2007, early elections were called and, contrary to 2005, this time PO’s campaign was led more professionally. With the expertise of consultants from consumer marketing, PO proposed the slogan ‘Economic miracle’, promising dynamic country development (‘building the second Ireland’) and ‘professional’ foreign politics. The positive message, however, was not the only one. Before the campaign officially started, PO launched an outdoor campaign. White words, such as ‘aggression’ and ‘contempt’, had been plastered on black billboards across the country. On the bottom they read: ‘PiS governs and Poles are ashamed’. The billboards were not signed by a party. In the second phase, PO labelled their billboards; however, instead of a negative campaign, they promoted their values using their party colours. On white billboards, blue words such as ‘peace’ and ‘respect’ appeared, all under the motto ‘a better life for everyone’. The negative campaign was mostly visible on television where different spots suggested who was more moral and more corrupt. PiS launched its campaign under the motto ‘Rules oblige’, repeating their 2005 promises, threatening by hospital privatisation and even the return of martial law. The breaking point of the campaign was a television debate. Donald Tusk (PO) asked the incumbent PM JarosławKaczyński (PiS) about the prices of ordinary products (potatoes, poultry, etc.) and nurses’ salaries. Kaczynski started to provide macroeconomic data leaving viewers with the impression he did not know Polish society. The PO campaign was based upon an ‘everyman’ image (Sullivan et  al. 1990), suggesting its politicians knew the worries and

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dreams of their voters. For the first time, politicians also started ­targeting voters living abroad (e.g. Tusk went to Great Britain and Ireland). Online campaigning was limited to websites which served as integration-­ information tools. For the first time in political campaigns, neuromarketing began to be used in studying (using electroencephalography or EEG) voters’ sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective responses to candidates and parties and their promotional materials (Chyłkiewicz 2007). In the Shadow of an Plane Crash: Campaigns in 2010 and 2011 Two months before the presidential elections in 2010, Polish incumbent President Lech Kaczyński along with dozens of Polish politicians died in an airplane crash near Smolensk, Russia. This crash and the subsequent national mourning influenced the political campaign’s climate and tools. Two parties—PiS and SLD—lost their presidential candidates. For the first time in Polish political campaigns, a dead leader’s legacy was very much present. After Lech Kaczyński’s death, people reported more trust towards his brother, Jarosław Kaczyński (Cwalina and Drzewiecka in press a) and PiS (Gorbaniuk 2010). Party marketers made use of the image and good memory of the deceased president, encouraging a sense of pride and identity and fostering the core electorate’s cohesiveness. Polish divisions and quarrels escalated in the following 2011 parliamentary run. PiS employed aggressive narratives, accusing Prime Minister Donald Tusk not only of being responsible for the crash but also of state treason and ‘collaboration with Putin’ in bringing about the tragedy. Nor did PO avoid negative campaigning. In order to mobilise undecided voters, PO presented Kaczyński’s electorate as aggressive and irresponsible in a special spot called ‘They will vote’. Although Facebook was gaining in importance, social media were neither main campaign platforms, nor main information sources for voters (Batorski et al. 2012). Through a series of videos, the ruling PO tried to show positive changes in infrastructure and education, promising ‘We will do more’. In a time of global crisis, the election had an economic character. Focusing on money, PO tried to convince voters that only its politicians would get enough funds from the European Union. PiS’s key words were pride and dignity. They promised equal chances for all and appealed: ‘Change your country. Vote.’ The key figures travelling around the country were party leaders, and once again it was a leader-oriented campaign. PO won—the first time a government had been re-elected in democratic Poland.

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2015 Parliamentary and Presidential Campaigns Although the elections of 2015 were the first not to be personalised by the Kaczynski-Tusk conflict3 in a long time, both presidential and parliamentary campaigns were dominated by their parties. Differing from the 2010 presidential election, in 2015 Law and Justice (PiS) did not put up party leader Jarosław Kaczyński but the barely known PiS European Parliament Member Andrzej Duda. Looking for new voters, PiS provided a young modern face against the traditional figure of incumbent, President Bronislaw Komorowski. The manoeuvre used in the presidential campaign was also successfully implemented in the parliamentary one in 2015; rather than a party chief, the more or less unknown party member Beata Szydło became a campaign leader. She was positioned as an everywoman and the whole campaign was framed in terms of ‘bringing pride back to the country and dignity to average Polish families’. Big rallies on city squares across Poland characterised every party. However, nearly every PiS campaign event was professionally prepared and managed, and each party convention was like a show. It was PiS which dominated the public discussion and set campaign questions. Beata Szydło as the new face of PiS helped the party to seek new, more centre-oriented voters and social promises left the ideological focus hidden. On the other hand, negative campaigning was used extensively. In video attack advertisements, PiS tried to show government incompetence concerning migration policies, while at the same time stoking voter fear of refugees. PiS followed surveys and poll results suggesting most Poles were not likely to welcome refugees, especially Muslims from the Middle East and Africa. Their other successful supposition was the so-called ‘Poland in ruins’. This slogan spread effectively, going viral (especially on social media), and played a role in successfully priming and influencing voters’ perception of the former government. Although both PiS and PO used print, broadcast, and outdoor media, PiS dominated on social media (Facebook and Twitter). The party was able to use the Internet better than PO to mobilise its supporters and control media narratives.

Recent Trends All of Kotler’s (Kotler et al. 2017) stages of marketing concept evolution are recognisable in Polish political marketing, from product concept (1995–2000), through to the voters concept (2000–2010), and marketing 3.0 or the values concept (starting in 2010). Moving from traditional 3  In 2014, Donald Tusk was elected President of the European Council and left Polish politics.

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to digital marketing has been clearly visible since the election in 2015. This is what Kotler and his collaborators (2017) name marketing 4.0, and it seems to be the biggest challenge for the coming years. Electoral campaigns after the transformation have shifted from partyto voter-centred; however, the personalisation of politics still keeps both marketers and voters focused on political leaders. Because leaders are in the business of selling hope and bringing values, recognition and response to voter expectations have become crucial in positioning these leaders. Polish candidates are still learning how to balance between this—what Henneberg (2006) calls ‘market driving’ and ‘market driven’. A candidate’s leadership style might weaken the voter support of a party if it does not match the electorate’s expectations (Cwalina and Drzewiecka in press b). Looking for victory, party leaders started to agree on tailored images. Image, rather than substance, is central in modern political campaigning, and it applies to Polish society (Cwalina et al. 2011). Candidate positioning often lacks proper voter segmentation. In a time of personality targeting (Matz et  al. 2017), demographic not psychographic segmentation dominates. Polish parties have got used to basing their campaigns on opinion polls; however, the growing number of institutes does not go hand in hand with professionalism. The common practice is to publish opinion polls conducted by media request (Szwed 2011). Media itself has become deeply polarised. On the one hand, there is private media with political sympathies, and on the other, public media does not fulfil their role. New media law as well as the government’s combative relationship with a critical press cost Poland in 2017, declining from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ in its press freedom status (Freedom House 2017). Concerning electoral campaigns, this situation influences public debate and does not guarantee equal rights in access to party promotion in the media. Polish political campaigns starting with the presidential election in 1995 have followed American examples in terms of implemented strategies and tactics. Big rallies, emotional television advertisements, and negative campaigns belong to nearly every candidate marketing map on the presidential level and to party marketing maps on the parliamentary level. One of the tools used in negative campaigns is tape recordings. Unethical methods, such as using fake news and paid haters or trolls on social media platforms are further concerns. The beginning of hypermedia campaigns was observed in 2011 (Koc-Michalska et  al. 2014), however it did not start developing until 2015. After the long domination of television in

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political marketing, Internet marketing gained in attention, providing new marketing opportunities. Similar to the United States and Western Europe, Polish political marketing is no longer a short-term tactical device to win elections but has become a long-term process to sustain a government’s public popularity. Twenty-four hour information channels, Facebook, and Twitter are places for perpetual campaigning. Twitter, with around four million users, is the favourite among opinion leaders while Facebook assures access to wider publicity with over 20 million users (Gemius/ PBI 2017). As electorate perceptions shift from a candidate’s competence towards their morality, marketers also shift messages with Instagram pictures and videos, proving a candidate is sincere and a warm ‘everyman’ rather than a competent and intelligent ‘superman’. Narratives are often purposefully ambiguous so as to give undecided voters a chance to interpret them along with their different interests (Cwalina et al. 2015). The liberal economic framing, which was once at the forefront immediately following the transformation, has since 2005 gradually given way, peaking in 2015, to the dominance of social frames.

Conclusion Starting with the transformation in 1989, communication channels have changed, political ads are shorter, politicians better dressed, and narratives more professionally tailored (see Table 10.1). However, three aspects of political marketing seem to be unchanged. First, there is a big discrepancy between campaign professionalisation on the state and local levels (to the local level’s disadvantage). Second, in political campaigning, gender stereotypes still play a role, and although there are more women in Polish politics, marketers do not know how or do not want to change it. And third, political marketing is commonly misunderstood as public relations or propaganda. Spin doctors, analysts, and image makers are too often chosen among party politicians, and the names of external consultants—if engaged—are not publicly known. Over the years, it can be clearly seen that Polish election campaigns are becoming more and more professional  (see Table  10.1). Voters have become more sophisticated. Perhaps their knowledge of politics and democratic processes have not increased, but their knowledge of strategies and marketing tactics in politics have grown considerably. This forces politicians to hire specialists in public relations, marketing research, event planning,

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digital campaigning, advertising, etc. Only via precise micro-segmentation does it becomes possible to reach people who are less interested in politics as well as to adjust campaign messages to the expectations and needs of particular voter groups. New technologies have also changed Polish political marketing. It is not enough to have a website anymore. Currently, every politician should have an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and use YouTube. These communication channels are developing and will develop dynamically. And although, in Poland, television is still the dominant mode of communication with voters, the Internet is gaining in importance, especially among younger voters, and it is increasing the chances of populist or so-called apolitical candidates who reduce their message to ‘fight against the current system’. It also only seems a matter of time (and money) before personalised targeting strategies based on big data are used in campaigns. Although it raises ethical issues, the actions of companies such as Cambridge Analytica show the effectiveness of such strategies in controlling voter behaviour. In addition to new opportunities related to the development of technology, political campaigns must and will respond to changes in the demographic makeup of the country, such as the aging population and changes in the gender gap (Cwalina et al. 2012). For example, the political power of the elderly (so-called ‘grey power’) is more apparent in elections and change the focus of marketing campaigns. In a plurality-majority electoral system, aging increases the political relevance of elderly voters as measured by their share of votes. The pivotal political agent becomes an individual who is closer to retirement age, and therefore considers a shorter time horizon in evaluating social security policy. We can expect political campaigns in Poland to be subject to the processes of the ‘globalisation’ of political marketing, the growth of its technological advancement, and the increasing costs related to running a campaign.

1991

Early elections. High level of personalisation, focus on party leaders.

Partially free election. Low level of personalisation: ‘Solidarity’ as a team headed by Lech Wałęsa vs. Communists.

1989

Combined system: 161 (35%) seats for individual electoral districts + 299 (65%) seats reserved for the Communist Party (PZPR) and its satellite parties, including 35 seats elected via a country-wide list. Combined system: 391 seats for individual electoral districts (without threshold, Hare-Niemeyer method) + 69 seats for country-wide lists (threshold of 5%).

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 10.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Poland

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Yes

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Privatisation and economic Yes transformation (the so-called Balcerowicz plan or ‘shock therapy’), de-communisation and lustration, the role of the Catholic Church (abortion, learning religion in schools).

Criticism regarding state communistic system, a smooth transition vs. fast and radical transformation, the necessity to reform the country, freedom.

Main campaign topics

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1997

Polarisation of AWS vs. SLD.

Early election. Yes Aggressive and negative campaign.

Combined system: 391 seats for individual electoral districts (threshold of 5% for parties and 8% for party coalitions; committees of national minorities released from the threshold) + 69 seats for country-wide lists (threshold of 7%). Combined system: 391 seats for individual electoral districts (threshold of 5% for parties and 8% for party coalitions; committees of national minorities released from the threshold) + 69 seats for country-wide lists (threshold of 7%). Yes

Yes

No

Issues Candidates

1993

Campaign focus

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 10.1 (continued)

No

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Poor coping with the Yes effects of floods by the SLD (training government, health and workshops) administration reforms.

The role of the state in the economy, the deterioration of the standard of living, de-communisation and lustration, abortion.

Main campaign topics

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2007

2005

Yes

Early election, fiercely polarised: PiS vs. PO

No

Yes

Yes (presidential elections were held at the same time)

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Clash of visions No about the state: PiS vs. PO vs. SLD

Relatively non-intensive campaign.

2001

All 460 seats for individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5% for parties and 8% for party coalitions; committees of national minorities released from the threshold. All 460 seats for individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5% for parties and 8% for party coalitions; committees of national minorities released from the threshold. All 460 seats for individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5% for parties and 8% for party coalitions; committees of national minorities released from the threshold.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 10.1 (continued)

Criticism of the PiS government.

In the shadow of corruption scandal associated with the ruling party (SLD).

Integration with the EU.

Main campaign topics

No

No

No

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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2015

Fiercely polarised: PiS vs. PO

Fiercely polarised: PiS vs. PO.

2011

All 460 seats for individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5% for parties and 8% for party coalitions; committees of national minorities released from the threshold. All 460 seats for individual electoral districts. Threshold of 5% for parties and 8% for party coalitions; committees of national minorities released from the threshold.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 10.1 (continued)

No

No

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

No

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Migration policies, reform No of family policy, sovereignty of Poland within the EU.

First parliamentary campaign after President Lech Kaczyński’s death in air crash.

Main campaign topics

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Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media, websites, internet banners.

1993

1997

1991

Rallies, canvassing. Candidates’ debates on television. Rallies, canvassing. Candidates’ debates on television.

Rallies, canvassing, letters to voters. Rallies, canvassing. Candidates’ debates on television.

1989

Billboards (stationary and mobile), leaflets, ads in electronic media (public only). Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media.

Types of campaign activities

Year of Type of communication (ads election and media)

Table 10.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes. 60-times monthly industrial salary in the month preceding the announced date by the president of the election. No

No

Use of polling Campaign spending and research limits techniques?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Notes

(continued)

Yes (up to Mobilisation 15% of free via ICT (SMS airtime) messages).

Yes (up to 15% of free airtime)

Yes (up to 10% of free airtime)

No

Free Possibility airtime to buy on public airtime media

10 POLAND 

145

2015

2011

2007

2005

2001

Types of campaign activities

Rallies, canvassing. Candidates’ debates on television. Billboards, leaflets, ads in Rallies, traditional electronic media, canvassing. websites, internet banners, Candidates’ use of Facebook. debates on television. Billboards; leaflets; ads in Rallies, traditional electronic media; canvassing. websites; internet banners; Candidates’ intensive use of Facebook, debates on Twitter, and YouTube. television. Billboards; leaflets; ads in Rallies, traditional electronic media; canvassing. websites; internet banners; Candidates’ ads in Web 1.0 and 2.0; debates on intensive use of Facebook, television. Twitter, and YouTube. Billboards; leaflets; ads in Rallies, traditional electronic media; canvassing. websites; internet banners; Candidates’ intensive use of Facebook, debates on Twitter, and YouTube. television.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media, websites, internet banners

Year of Type of communication (ads election and media)

Table 10.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes. 1 PLN per voter in each constituency where an electoral committee registers a list. Yes. 1 PLN per voter in each constituency where an electoral committee registers a list. Yes. 1 PLN per voter in each constituency where an electoral committee registers a list. Yes. 0.82 PLN per voter in each constituency where an electoral committee registers a list. Yes. 0.82 PLN per voter in each constituency where an electoral committee registers a list.

Use of polling Campaign spending and research limits techniques?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, without limits

Yes, without limits

Yes, without limits

Yes, without limits

Yes, without limits

Free Possibility airtime to buy on public airtime media

Mobilisation via social media.

Mobilisation via social media.

Mobilisation via social media.

Mobilisation via social media.

Mobilisation via ICT (SMS messages).

Notes

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10 POLAND 

147

References Batorski, Dominik, Marcin Nagraba, Jan M. Zając, and Jarosław Zbieranek. 2012. Internet w Kampanii Wyborczej 2011. Warszawa: Instytut Spraw Publicznych. Chyłkiewicz, Jolanta. 2007. POPiS mózgu. Newsweek 42/2007, October 21, pp. 66–72. Cwalina, Wojciech. 2008. Poland, Democratization. In Encyclopedia of Political Communication, Volume 2, ed. Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, 552–556. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Cwalina, Wojciech, and Andrzej Falkowski. 2000. Psychological Mechanisms of Political Persuasion: The Influence of Political Advertising on Voting Behavior. Polish Psychological Bulletin 31 (3): 203–222. ———. 2005. Marketing Polityczny. Perspektywa Psychologiczna. Gdańsk: Gdańskie Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne. ———. 2006. Political Communication and Advertising in Poland. In The Sage Handbook of Political Advertising, ed. Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-­ Bacha, 325–342. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ———. 2008. Political TV Advertising in Forming Voters’ Attitudes in Poland. In The EU Expansion: Communicating Shared Sovereignty in the Parliamentary Elections, ed. Lynda Lee Kaid, 101–120. New York: Peter Lang. Cwalina, Wojciech, and Milena Drzewiecka. in press a. ‘The Late Leader’: Influence of Political Leader’s Death on Their Evaluation. Journal of Political Marketing. ———. in press b. Why Do Marketers Need to Know Political Leader? Leadership Style and Its Influence on Leader and Party Evaluation. In New Trends in Marketing and Politics, ed. Anna Matušková. Prague: Charles University Press. Cwalina, Wojciech, Andrzej Falkowski, and Bohdan Rożnowski. 1999. Television Spots in Polish Presidential Elections. In Television and Politics in Evolving European Democracies, ed. Lynda Lee Kaid, 45–60. Commack, NY: Nova Science Publishers. Cwalina, Wojciech, Andrzej Falkowski, and Lynda Lee Kaid. 2000. Role of Advertising in Forming the Image of Politicians: Comparative Analysis of Poland, France, and Germany. Media Psychology 2 (2): 119–146. ———. 2005. Advertising and the Image of Politicians in Evolving and Established Democracies: Comparative Study of the Polish and the U.S.  Presidential Elections in 2000. Journal of Political Marketing 4 (2/3): 19–44. https://doi. org/10.1300/J199v04n02_02. Cwalina, Wojciech, Andrzej Falkowski, and Paweł Koniak. 2006. Advertising Effects: Polish Elections to the European Parliament. In Campaigning in Europe  – Campaigning for Europe. Political Parties, Campaigns, Mass Media and the European Parliament Elections 2004, ed. Michaela Maier and Jens Tenscher, 371–386. Berlin: LIT Verlag. Cwalina, Wojciech, Andrzej Falkowski, and Bruce I.  Newman. 2011. Political Marketing: Theoretical and Strategic Foundations. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

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———. 2012. The Macro and Micro Views of Political Marketing: The Underpinnings of a Theory of Political Marketing. Journal of Public Affairs 12 (4): 254–269. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1421. Cwalina, Wojciech, Andrzej Falkowski, Paweł Koniak, and Robert Mackiewicz. 2015. Wieloznaczność w Przekazach Politycznych. Sopot: Gdańskie Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne. Falkowski, Aandrzej, and Wojciech Cwalina. 2004. Political Marketing in Evolving European Democracies. Journal of Political Marketing 3 (2): 1–5. https://doi. org/10.1300/J199v03n02_01. Freedom House. 2017. Freedom of the Press: Poland. https://freedomhouse. org/report/freedom–press/2017/poland. Friestad, Marian, and Peter Wright. 1994. The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How People Cope with Persuasion Attempts. Journal of Consumer Research 21 (1): 1–30. Gemius/PBI. 2017. Interia.pl zwiększa przewagą nad Gazeta.pl, a Onet nad Wirtualną Polską (wyniki Gemius/PBI z lutego). WirtualneMedia, March 10. https://www. wirtualnemedia.pl/artykul/wyniki-badania-gemius-pbi-za-luty-2017. Gorbaniuk, Oleg. 2010. The Impact of the Smolensk Air Crash on the Attribution of Personality Traits to Political Parties. Current Problems of Psychiatry 11 (2): 112–118. Henneberg, Stephan C.M. 2006. Leading or Following? A Theoretical Analysis of Political Marketing Postures. Journal of Political Marketing 5 (3): 29–46. Koc-Michalska, Karolina, Darren G.  Lilleker, Pawel Surowiec, and Pawel Baranowski. 2014. Poland’s 2011 Online Election Campaign: New Tools, New Professionalism, New Ways to Win Votes. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 11 (2): 186–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681. 2014.899176. Konstytucja Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej z dnia 2 kwietnia 1997 roku. 1997. http:// prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU19970780483. Kotler, Philip, Hermawan Kartajaya, and Iwan Setiawan. 2017. Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Matz, Sibylle C., Michal Kosinski, Gideon Nave, and David J.  Stillwell. 2017. Psychological Targeting as an Effective Approach to Digital Mass Persuasion. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences 114 (48): 12714–12719. https:// doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710966114. Pieńkowski, Ryszard, and Wieslaw Baryła. 1999. Wyniki polskich wyborów parlamentarnych 1997 roku w świetle teorii zachowań wyborczych. Kolokwia Psychologiczne 7: 253–274. Sullivan, John L., John H.  Aldrich, Eugene Borgida, and Wendy Rahn. 1990. Candidate Appraisal and Human Nature: Man and Superman in the 1984 Election. Political Psychology 11 (3): 459. Szwed, Robert. 2011. Printmedia Poll Reporting in Poland: Poll as News in Polish Parliamentary Campaigns, 1991–2007. Communist and Post–Communist Studies 44 (1): 63–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2011.01.001.

CHAPTER 11

Slovakia Jozef Zagrapan

Country Overview Slovakia is a parliamentary democracy in which a party-list proportional representation system with the Hagenbach-Bischoff quota is used to elect 150 members to the National Council of the Slovak Republic. Parties must gain at least five per cent of votes to enter the parliament. While the party system evolved over time, it has yet to fully be consolidated due to constant splits in various parties and, with an exception in 2006, the introduction of a new party to the parliament after every election. One of the leading forces behind the events of 1989 was the movement Public Against Violence (VPN). The leaders of Slovak demonstrations were less interested in obtaining political positions and were more inclined to so-called ‘non-political politics’. Along with the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS), VPN’s main rival in the 1990 election was the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH); nevertheless, after the election, these two parties, together with the Democratic Party (DS), created a coalition government.

J. Zagrapan (*) Institute for Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_11

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The politics of the 1990s was mostly dominated by the charismatic former member of VPN Vladimír Mečiar. He was prime minister after both the 1990 and 1992 elections and was removed from this position both times. First, in 1991, after internal conflicts in VPN, after which he created the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), and second, after internal conflicts in HZDS. Despite this, he managed to decisively win the first election following the dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (1993) in 1994. The rule of HZDS, in coalition with nationalists from the Slovak National Party (SNS) and the radical left-wing Association of Workers of Slovakia (ZRS), is often known as ‘Mečiarism’. It can be characterised as a diversion from democratic principles, abuse of power, and major scandals. In order to supress the increasing support of cooperating opposition, electoral reform was passed with new rules requiring each party in an electoral coalition to gain at least five per cent to enter the parliament. Even though HZDS won the 1998 election, Mikuláš Dzurinda led a government—formed by the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK), which transformed in 2000 to the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ); the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK); the Party of Democratic Left (SDĽ); and the Party of Civic Understanding (SOP)— which put the country back on a democratic path. The government started major reforms, and Dzurinda was able to form a new right-wing coalition government even after the 2002 election. Slovakia enter the European Union and NATO in 2004 and the government continued neoliberal reforms. However, these proved to be quite unpopular and, together with conflicts among the governing parties as well as within the coalition, they opened a path to victory in 2006 for the social democratic party Direction (SMER), led by Robert Fico. Fico joined forces with Mečiar’s HZDS and the SNS but kept many of the previous reforms untouched. Slovakia adopted the Euro as a currency in 2009. SMER won the 2010 election; however, public frustration with scandals increased the gains of the right-wing opposition—SDKÚ, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), KDH, and the Hungarian minority party MOST (Bridge)—which formed a government led by the first female prime minister, Iveta Radičová (SDKÚ). Only a year later, the coalition party SaS refused to support the European System of Financial Supervision in a parliamentary vote and early elections then took place in 2012. These were influenced by the so-called ‘Gorilla’ scandal after documents allegedly

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from the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) were leaked to the public. They tied almost all parties of the second Dzurinda government to corruption. Major demonstrations—the biggest in Slovakia since  1989—took place and SMER, unaffected by the scandal, won massively with forty-four per cent, allowing it to rule without a coalition partner. Like all the governments in the past, it could not avoid scandals and did not repeat its previous dominant electoral win. After the 2016 election, SMER formed a coalition government joining together the nationalistic SNS, the Hungarian minority party MOST, and the right-wing party SIEŤ (Network). However, new populist and radical forces, including the extreme right People’s Party—Our Slovakia, which has a neo-Nazi background, increased their gains in 2016.

Legal Framework The electoral campaign starts with the publication of the decision of an election date and runs until forty-eight hours before the election day. Political subjects must create a specific bank account for electoral expenditures and can spend up to 3 million EUR including VAT. Everything spent on the promotion of a party 180  days before the announcement of an election date must be included in the limit. Parties are required to submit a final report of their finances after the election. Campaigns are controlled by the Ministry of Interior, the State Commission for Elections and Control of Financing of Political Parties, and district offices. Slovak public television and public radio must allocate up to thirty minutes for the promotion of each political party or coalition of parties and, altogether, a maximum of ten hours of political advertisements. If other broadcasters with a licence decide to run political ads, the same restrictions apply. Municipalities are required to specify places and conditions for the placement of electoral posters and allocated space must be equally large for all subjects. The law also states that it is forbidden to publish electoral polls fourteen days before the election day until the end of voting. Most of the current rules have applied since 2014. In the first election in 1990, the electoral campaign period in the case of election to the Federal Assembly started forty days before the election day and lasted until forty-eight hours before the vote. In the case of election to the Slovak National Council, the law only stated that the campaign ends two days

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before the election. An amendment in 1992 changed the campaign period in both elections from twenty-three days to forty-eight hours before election day and, again in 1998, from thirty days to forty-eight hours. Financial expenditures first became regulated by the law in the 1994 election, when it was stated that parties can spend a maximum of 12 million Slovak crowns (approximately 400,000 EUR). It was often believed that parties had spent more than they officially admitted, and the limit was cancelled in 2005. When it comes to political ads, from 1990 to the 2002 election, public television and radio allocated twenty-one hours of time equally divided between political parties. An amendment before the 1998 parliamentary election explicitly stated that electoral campaigns can be run only on public television and sanctions for any broadcaster violating the rules increased significantly. Until the election in 1994, it was allowed to publish electoral polls seven days before the election day; from 1998 to 2002 (and since 2016), this limit was extended to fourteen days. A law in 2004 forbid the publishing of polls only during the election.

Historical Overview of Campaigns The new era following the 1989 revolution meant the end the Communist Party’s dominance and the start of a new period of party competition. Almost no political parties were able to produce constructive political manifestos to help distinguish themselves and most campaigns were amateur at best. This had to do with two facts: First, the population was quite homogenised after decades under the communist regime and all parties felt the need to guarantee the continuation of democratisation, economic reforms, and a political plurality. Second, the parties did not possess conceptual, organisational or, with the exception of the Communist Party, financial readiness (Gyarfášová and Ritomský 1991; Holák 2006). The first electoral campaign period could be characterised by an increasing problem of nationalism and two political parties profited from this phenomenon—the nationalistic SNS and the Hungarian minority party Coexistence. Also, the political importance of Catholicism was rather overrated (Gyarfášová and Ritomský 1991). More than on manifestos, the campaigns were focused on the personalities and leaders of the parties. Aside from the rather important tools of political meetings and rallies, parties mainly relied on public broadcasting, the public address systems, and posters to spread their message.

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Circumstances and context differed for most of the relevant parties. Shortly after November 1989, VPN had been a nationwide movement. Nonetheless, over time it started to crumble under the pressure of political differentiation. With its decreasing popularity, the party decided to add popular figures from the previous regime to the ballot, such as Alexander Dubček. Their campaign, compared to that of KDH, for example, was organised more centrally, attracting significant crowds to rallies with the party leaders (Gyarfášová and Ritomský 1991). KDH, representing political Catholicism, possessed a well-built organisational structure: Activities on a local level were spontaneous, and besides official campaign rallies, the party was connected to church activities such as pilgrimages and processions. However, the question over its close connection to the Catholic Church had its disadvantages, and the idea that some priests promoted the party in the Church was not always welcomed by all attendees (Gyarfášová and Ritomský 1991). This connection also fuelled a negative campaign against KDH which linked it to the clero-fascist Slovak state during the Second World War (Holák 2006). The Communist campaign was specific when compared to other parties. Rather than addressing new voters, the party tried to conserve its support. It focused on their leaders meeting with voters, and one of the core ideas was to spread social demagogy about potential economic fallout under the new regime (Gyarfášová and Ritomský 1991). The campaign before the 1992 election was exacerbated by current events in the politics, but from an organisational standpoint, it was similar to the previous one and voters were more influenced by the context of the election. Internal conflicts in VPN removed Vladimír Mečiar from his position. The charismatic leader was popular among voters and he subsequently created his own party, later to become the political behemoth HZDS. The campaign was shaped mainly by the question of the constitutional arrangement of the federation, the position of Slovaks within it, and economic transformation (Vlčej 2016). Even though advertising agencies were more involved this time, most work involving the creation of campaign materials was still in the hands of political parties. One of the more successful tools proved to be leaflets sent to the mailboxes of the citizenry (Košta 1994). It was a turbulent period after the 1992 election and the mood within society was influenced by the division of the federation. Internal conflicts within HZDS meant the second premature end of Mečiar as a prime

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minister. An interim government, led by ex-HZDS member Jozef Moravčík, was formed by KDH, the post-communistic Party of the Democratic Left (SDĽ), and former members of SNS and HZDS. Since it had focused more on long-term goals with an aim to stabilise the macroeconomic situation, it had to adopt unpopular reforms. Mečiar used his removal from the office to his advantage, spreading the message that the government was not defending Slovak interests and was in the hands ‘foreign powers’. The electoral campaign after the dissolution of the federation was thus shaped by the economic situation and nationalism. Because of the early election, the majority of parties were caught unprepared. In general, focus on manifestos was replaced by sympathies for individual politicians and their attitudes towards current events. In the campaigns, parties clung to political rallies—even though attendance at these had a decreasing tendency—and leafletting. The low professionalism of most campaign teams manifested itself in poor testing of the effectiveness of instruments used in the campaigns, a low level of volunteer coordination, poor monitoring of campaign activities, or the politicians’ unwillingness to listen to advice from hired professionals (Košta 1994, 182–183). Nevertheless, compared to previous campaigns, the role of finances increased in 1994, and relevant parties used advertising agency services more extensively (Košta 1994). The one party different from the others was HZDS. It led the most coordinated campaign, used simple messages, members of the party dressed in a similar fashion, and the party improved their individual communications with voters. Among others, the party used the services of a foreign advisor from Italy. The election in 1994 was won by HZDS, which created an ideologically heterogeneous coalition with nationalists from SNS and the radical leftist ZRS. Opposition was not allowed to hold any important parliamentary positions, thus starting the era of competitive authoritarianism. Democratic institutions existed but legislative, judicial, electoral, media, and other institutions were skewed in favour of the governing coalition. The isolationistic coalition focused on social stability and growth in the campaign and cautioned against the Western-oriented opposition, which campaigned with the promise of change. The political contest was defined by a ‘mečarism-antimečiarism’ cleavage. In response, five political parties [KDH, DS, Democratic Union (DÚ), the Social Democratic Party of Slovakia (SDSS) and the Green Party (SZ)] created the electoral coalition SDK. Similar tactics saw three Hungarian

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minority parties form the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK). The government reacted to the rising popularity of the opposition with electoral reform. Four districts were changed to a nationwide one, and more importantly, every party in an electoral coalition now needed to gain at least five per cent to enter the parliament. SDK then transformed into a political party with exclusive membership when 150 candidates on the ballot became the only members and Mikuláš Dzurinda became its leader. SMK did the same. Electronic media became the most influential means of information dissemination. The amendment to electoral law explicitly stated that campaigns can be run using only public broadcasting, and these were, especially the public television channel, in the hands of HZDS. The most striking examples of this connection were television reporters and presenters running for HZDS in the election or hosting its campaign rallies. What is more, when it came to the presentation of politicians in the news, around eighty per cent of the time was devoted to members of the coalition. Numbers were similar on the radio. In contrast, seventy percent of the time on the private broadcaster Markíza was devoted to the opposition, but its signal did not cover the whole country (Školkay 1999; Krivý 1999). Compared to previous campaigns was the novel fact that, for the first time, the Internet was used by every relevant political party. Party websites were primarily used to spread information about themselves; however, there were also examples of interactivity, such as discussion forums. Interactivity was used primarily by SDK. The party offered live IRC chat, and during the campaign, the party connected with users when it offered the possibility for its leaders to answer questions live, streaming a ‘live virtual press conference’ (Vystavil 1999). HZDS organised huge rallies with leader appearances and entertainment for supporters, who were transported to the events by train and bus from around the country. Moreover, HZDS invited foreign celebrities, such as Claudia Schiffer or Gérard Depardieu, to be present at the opening of finished government projects like new highways. On the other hand, the opposition, and especially SDK, travelled to the regions, including Dzurinda, who toured part of these trips—more than nine hundred kilometres—by bike (Školkay 1999). More than anytime in past, non-governmental organisations were involved before the election, focusing on a get out the vote campaign with rallies and concerts.

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Although HZDS won the election narrowly, SDK, SMK, SDĽ, and the Party of Civic Understanding (SOP) created the government. Slovakia slowly returned to the democratic path and the 2002 election was the beginning of standardisation. The ‘mečiarism-anti-mečiarism’ cleavage was on the decline, and almost all the parties focused largely on social and economic topics as well as EU and NATO integration (Wienk and Majchrák 2003). The campaign apparatus of relevant parties was similar; difference was mostly in scope. All parties used advertising agencies and billboard campaigns even before the official start of the campaign and ads in electronic and print media were becoming standard. The HZDS campaign, the most expensive and massive in 1998, was much more modest. The party still possessed a large voter base but was unable to attract new voters. On the other hand, the SDKÚ campaign was much larger and more professional. The marketing approach of the party was based on sociological surveys, and the SDKÚ achieved success by naming itself as the one which had put Slovakia on a path to the European Union (Wienk and Majchrák 2003). The party toured the country on a blue bus—blue being the colour of the SDKÚ. The longest campaign, however, was led by the new party SMER. SMER profiled itself as a ‘third way’ and campaigned quite negatively against both HZDS and the SDKÚ. It hired a former marketing specialist of HZDS Fedor Flašík, and besides an ad campaign in the media, it toured the country (Wienk and Majchrák 2003). The election result for SMER was however underwhelming, and although HZDS won once again, the SDKÚ, KDH, SMK, and the new liberal Alliance for the New Citizen (ANO) created a right-wing coalition. The ANO campaign was a testament to the influence of electronic media in campaigning. The party, created by the owner of the popular Markíza private television broadcaster, Pavol Rusko, used the broadcaster for promotion, and candidates were overrepresented in its broadcasting. Nonetheless, the new coalition suffered from conflicts between and within parties, and in opposition, SMER was gradually integrating the left spectrum of parties. Compared to 2002, the 2006 campaigns were more pragmatic and sophisticated but lacked a specific theme that would stand out; competition was shaped mainly by social and economic questions. The most important change was the cancelation of financial limits. The parties applied well-tried tools and none of them stood out as special. Overall, taking all campaigns into account, this period could be characterised as ‘between caution and professionalism’ (Doktor 2006, 233).

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SMER won the election and created government with the controversial HZDS and SNS.  SMER had perfected the act of the permanent campaign and was successful not only in claiming the government’s successes as its own but also in taking over part of its partners’ voters. What is more, although a governing party, during the 2010 campaign, rather than solely promoting its successes, the party put forward a negative campaign and warned about a return of the right. SMER was also the most successful in setting the agenda of the campaign, focusing the public view on the question of social stability in times of economic crisis in Europe. While the Internet had earlier become a standard part of information dissemination, no party relied on it during the campaign. This changed in 2010. All the relevant parties had at least one social media profile. Liberal party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), led by Richard Sulík, was quick to realise the potential of online space; party members were active bloggers, and SaS created not only a Facebook page but also a group for supporters to discuss and an intranet for members to communicate. The party had led the most modern campaign, successfully targeting undecided and young voters. What is more, they persuaded their online followers to go vote (Timoracký 2011), thus becoming the second strongest party in a right-wing coalition led by Iveta Radičová (SDKÚ), KDH, and the Hungarian minority party MOST, created by former SMK members. Thanks to an early election in 2012, the parties did not have much time to prepare for the campaign, one in which the economic crisis in Europe was expected to dominate. Right-wing voters were disillusioned by the short-lived government and became even more so after alleged Slovak Intelligence Service documents were leaked on the Internet, tying rightwing parties from the second Dzurinda government to corruption. SMER framed the scandal as a right-wing party problem and focused on a campaign promising economic and social stability for people with the slogan: ‘People deserve security’. As the only governing party, SMER easily claimed all the successes, and the lines between governing and campaigning were definitely blurred. Moreover, throughout the electoral cycle, it continued to hold rallies on specific occasions; for example, every year on International Women’s Day, SMER toured among cities with leaders, popular singers, and entertainers. On the other hand, it was easier for the opposition to place the failures on

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the single-party government. Therefore, most opposition parties framed the campaign theme as a ‘fight’ against SMER, declaring an unwillingness to create a government with it after the election. The refugee crisis was another important theme of a campaign, whereby not only SMER, but also the main opposition parties legitimised the discourse of the radical right and focused on anti-immigration sentiment. Campaigns in 2016 were professional, and more so than in the past, parties focused on specific areas in which they were strong and suppressed priorities that would not be priorities for their voters or would not bring the desired number of votes. For example, SaS focused primarily on economic topics, presenting reform ideas which could help people while suppressing post-material themes like gay marriages. More so than ever before, the Internet played a role, especially in helping smaller parties with limited resources. A new conservative populist party We Are Family (SME RODINA), created only months before the elections, used the online following of its founder, Boris Kollár, an entrepreneur known from the tabloids. The extreme-right People’s Party—Our Slovakia was well represented on Facebook, with pages for local branches, allowing the quick promotion of any party activity on a local and micro-local level when it came to problems supposedly ignored by the mainstream parties. Thanks to online communication channels, the discourse and party messaging about the ‘corrupt-elite’ and ‘pure people’ were easily spread.

Recent Trends In recent years, the campaigns of the most relevant Slovak political subjects have been professional, and over time, it has become standard to use professional advisers and consultants in marketing and advertising and to use one’s own polls and surveys when making campaign decisions on public opinion. The Slovak electoral system does not create an intra-party electoral competition incentive for parties and candidates, and these campaigns are often centralised and focused on a few selected leaders. The parties use a well-tried media mix from the past, where beyond rallies, advertisements in electronic media, print, and outdoors dominate. Campaign are often influenced by the budget available; however, recent years have brought relatively cheap online channels for parties to address new voters. Whereas

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a few years ago many parties jumped on the bandwagon and created various social media profiles, over the time they learned from which of them they benefited and which ones did not have the desired effect and reach; Twitter, for example, is much less popular than Facebook in Slovakia. In cases where a party used an innovative approach to connect with users, it often declined or stopped after the election. For instance, during the 2012 campaign, KDH tried to encourage users to ask questions about political issues and even used its own hashtag #conatokdh (loosely translated as What does KDH think?), but it did not take long before it finished. In the end, most parties suppressed their activity on Twitter, and some even cancelled their accounts. Currently, the Facebook pages of parties are used most to reach the desired audience. However, the pages of the most well-known individual candidates are on the rise and individual party members create their own fan-pages during the campaign to promote themselves and party issues. Parties as well as individual politicians, however, still keep control over the communication, and in a space designed for two- or three-way communication, interactivity is limited, and parties communicate mostly one-way. The same goes for their official websites. Parties thus created what is sometimes called ‘Web 1.5’ (e.g. Jackson and Lilleker 2009) whereby interaction with voters only increases during the campaign. The challenge that awaits, and which was already present in 2016, is fake news and the spread of disinformation. The most recent events in Slovak politics have shown that parties have begun to focus on specific segments of voters, choosing who to target, since they are aware of who their voters are and what kind of undecided voters they are able convince. Not only on a country level but also in regional or local elections, parties are choosing areas of the country where they know they have support or can gain more, deliberately bypassing others. If the 2016 election demonstrated something other than the increasing influence of online communication tools, it was direct contact with voters not only during the campaign but throughout the whole electoral cycle—a fact reflected by politicians in their proclamations of the need to visit and work in ‘the regions’. In addition, while manifestos had never played a critical role in Slovak campaigns, parties which neglect them can suffer resentment, as happened in SMER’s case, which less than two months before the election day had not published a full manifesto and was heavily criticised.

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Conclusion Slovakia has experienced a remarkable turnaround in recent decades and is now a standard parliamentary democracy. The first election in 1990 showed a lack of preparedness in most parties, which resulted in amateur campaigns. Parties focused on direct contact with the voter, public television and radio, print, and the spreading and mailing of leaflets. Up to and including the 1994 campaign, Slovakia had had the characteristics of premodern campaigns; however, things slowly started to change and finances started to play a more significant role. The biggest parties used the work of advertising agencies, and in the case of HZDS, even a foreign adviser. The 1998 campaign could almost be characterised as modern, albeit under a hybrid regime where the public broadcaster and other institutions were skewed in favour of the ruling coalition. Since the first democratic election, the context in which the country has found itself has been more important than the campaigns, having lesser influence on voters as there were usually two sides to a conflict and most of the voters were already decided. The situation started to normalise as of the 2002 election—relevant parties which did not use billboards or ad agencies started to and campaigning in Slovakia started to professionalise at every level. While it can be argued that Mečiar’s HZDS had already started permanent campaigning in 1994, since 2006, and even more so after the 2012 election, SMER has blurred the lines between governing and campaigning like no party before it. The 2010 election was the first to be influenced by the Internet and new communication channels, and over time, campaigns have started be bear the characteristics of postmodern campaigns (see Table 11.1).

1994

1992

Characteristics of premodern campaigns, ad agencies use and higher expenditures over time.

1990

List-PR, Hare quota, 3% threshold, four electoral districts List-PR, HagenbachBischoff quota, 5% threshold (7% for 2 and 3 party coalitions, 10% for 4 or more party coalition), four electoral districts.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 11.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Slovakia

Yes

No

No

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Socio-economic cleavage, No nationalistic cleavage, state-church cleavage. Socio-economic cleavage, No nationalistic cleavage, state of federation and position of Slovaks in it. Socio-economic cleavage, Yes nationalistic cleavage, first election of independent state.

Main campaign topics

Yes

2016

Increased use of new online communications channels, all relevant parties with professional campaigns.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

2012

2010

2006

2002

Modern campaigns in hybrid regime, all parties with web pages, standardisation of campaign competition over time, every party with outdoor campaign and advertising agency, use of internal polls and surveys in marketing strategy. Polls published up to election day, influence of the Internet in campaigns, campaigns gradually gaining characteristics of post-modern campaigns, permanent campaigning.

1998

List-PR, HagenbachBischoff quota, 5% threshold for every party even in coalition, one electoral district. List-PR, HagenbachBischoff quota, 5% threshold (7% for 2- and 3-party coalitions, 10% for 4 or more party coalition), one electoral district.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 11.1 (continued)

Socio-economic cleavage, neoliberal economic reforms vs social state, state-church cleavage, conflicts within right-wing coalition government. Socio-economic cleavage, economic crisis in Europe. Socio-economic cleavage, Economic crisis in Europe, ‘Gorilla’ scandal— linking older right-wing parties to corruption. Socio-economic cleavage, economic stability and decreasing unemployment vs scandals of single-party government, populist discourse, refugee crisis in Europe.

Cleavage ‘mečiarism vs antimečiarims’ (damping out), socio-economic cleavage, statechurch cleavage.

Cleavage ‘mečiarismvs antimečiarims’, questions of socials stability and liberal reforms.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Leaflets, posters, public broadcast, public address. Leaflets, posters, public broadcast, public address. Billboards, posters, leaflets, public broadcast, internet (limited). Billboards, posters, leaflets, public broadcast, internet (limited). Billboards, posters, leaflets, private media, public broadcast, internet. Billboards, posters, leaflets, private media, public broadcast, internet.

1990

2006

2002

1998

1994

1992

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 11.1 (continued)

Personal meetings with voters, rallies, door-to-door canvasing, concerts, GOTV, concerts, online tools. Personal meetings with voters, rallies, door-to-door canvasing, GOTV, online tools, telemarketing. Personal meetings with voters, rallies, door-to-door canvasing, GOTV, online tools, telemarketing.

Personal meetings with voters, rallies, church activities Personal meetings with voters, rallies, door-to-door canvasing Personal meetings with voters, rallies.

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Use of polling and research techniques?

No

Yes. 12 million SKK.

Yes. 12 million SKK.

Yes. 12 million SKK.

No

No

Campaign spending limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Free airtime on public media

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Possibility to buy airtime

(continued)

HZDS with foreign celebrities in campaign, first use of foreign advisors.

Limited use of party manifestos.

Notes

Billboards, posters, leaflets, private media, public broadcast, internet.

Billboards, posters, leaflets, private media, public broadcast, internet. Billboards, posters, leaflets, private media, public broadcast, internet.

2010

2012

2016

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 11.1 (continued)

Personal meetings with voters, rallies, door-to-door canvasing, GOTV, online tools, telemarketing, referendum. Personal meetings with voters, rallies, door-to-door canvasing, GOTV, online tools, telemarketing. Personal meetings with voters, rallies, door-to-door canvasing, GOTV, online tools, telemarketing.

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

Yes

Use of polling and research techniques?

Yes

Yes

Free airtime on public media

Yes. 3 million Yes EUR

No

No

Campaign spending limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Possibility to buy airtime

Polls prohibited from publication 14 days before election.

First election with all parties owning at least one social media profile.

Notes

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References Doktor, Vladislav. 2006. Volebné kampane politických strán: medzi prefesionalizáciou a opatrnosťou? In Slovenské voľby ʼ06, výsledky, príčiny, súvislosti, ed. Grigorij Mesežnikov, Oľga Gyarfášová, and Miroslav Kollár, 233–241. Bratislava: IVO. Gyarfášová, Oľga, and Alojz Ritomský. 1991. Voľby ʼ90 na slovenskej dedine (predvolebná aktivita politických strán, volebné výsledky, súvislosti). Sociológia 23: 5–6. Holák, Martin. 2006. KDH a prvé slobodné voľby roku 1990. In Zborník z odborného seminára Bratislava 2006, ed. Matej Medvecký, 247–254. Bratislava: Ústav pamäti národa. Jackson, Nigel A., and Darren G.  Lilleker. 2009. Building an Architecture of Participation? Political Parties and Web 2.0 in Britain. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 6 (3–4): 232–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/193316 80903028438. Košta, Jozef. 1994. Niektoré charakteristiky volebnej kampane pre parlamentné voľby 1994. In Slovensko Voľby 1994, ed. Soňa Szomolányi and Grigorij Mesežnikov, 181–186. Bratislava: Interlingua. Krivý, Vladimír. 1999. Regionálny monopol STV a výsledky volieb. In Slovenské voľby ʼ98: Kto? Prečo? Ako? ed. Martin Bútora, Grigorij Mesežnikov, and Zora Bútorová, 197–207. Bratislava: IVO. Školkay, Andrej. 1999. Médiá a politická komunikácia v predovlebnej volebnej kampani. In Slovenské voľby ʼ98: Kto? Prečo? Ako? ed. Martin Bútora, Grigorij Mesežnikov, and Zora Bútorová, 167–197. Bratislava: IVO. Timoracký, Marián. 2011. Podoby politického marketingu vo volebnej kampani 2010. In Slovenské voľby ʼ10, šanca na zmenu, ed. Zora Bútorová, Oľga Gyarfášová, Grigorij Mesežnikov, and Miroslav Kollár, 235–247. Bratislava: IVO. Vlčej, Jozef. 2016. Politický vývoj Slovenskej republiky v období 1989–2016. In Ako volia Slováci, ed. Jozef Vlčej et al., 59–103. Brno: Tribun. Vystavil, Martin. 1999. Voľby 1998 a Internet. In Slovenské voľby ʼ98: Kto? Prečo? Ako? ed. Martin Bútora, Grigorij Mesežnikov, and Zora Bútorová, 217–235. Bratislava: IVO. Wienk, Zuzana, and Jozef Majchrák. 2003. Volebná kampaň. In Slovenské voľby ʼ02, výsledky, dôsledky, súvislosti, ed. Grigorij Mesežnikov, Oľga Gyarfášová, and Miroslav Kollár, 163–181. Bratislava: IVO.

CHAPTER 12

Summary for Central Europe Miloš Gregor

Of the regions covered in this book, Central Europe, represented by the Visegrád Group (V4) countries, can be perceived as the region with the smoothest transition to the era of democratic regimes. Unlike the Balkans, it has not experienced armed conflict, and unlike the Baltic countries, it has not had to deal with a strong Russian minority. Nothing prevented the process of democratisation or the introduction of standard parliamentary democracies with free elections and thus the establishment of election campaigns. The party system in Hungary had been remarkably stable for the first twenty years, which has changed with the rise of Fidesz in 2010. Poland has faced a greater fragmentation of the party system, gradually crystallising into its present form with five parties represented in the Sejm. The situation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia was influenced until 1993 by their existence as one state, Czechoslovakia. However, the division happened peacefully and smoothly. Both countries have held onto a reasonably stable party system. In Slovakia, greater changes occurred in the 2006 elections with the victory of SMER, and in the Czech Republic after the 2010 (TOP 09 and VV) and especially 2013 (ANO and populists

M. Gregor (*) Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_12

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Dawn) elections. Changes in the party systems and the rise of new actors were often associated with new elements in electoral campaigns and a higher degree of professionalisation in the political communication of these parties. In all four countries, spending limits on campaigns were established at some point in the past thirty years. While in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, they are firmly capped and at the same amount for all parties, in Poland, they depend on the party’s election result—they are defined for each vote received. In all countries, public service media is obliged to allocate space for all candidates, whereas the possibility of presentation in private media differs. While in the Czech Republic, for example, private television and radio cannot offer parties any airtime for free or for a fee, in Poland, on the other hand, candidates may buy extra broadcasting time— both on private and public media. The parties’ obligation to finance the campaigns through transparent accounts and declare their funding in final reports, or the prohibition of polls from being published a few days before elections are not much different among V4 states. Most of the current legislation comes from after 2010 (for example, in the Czech Republic, most of the rules were set by laws from 2017). The period of the early 1990s was characterised by an exploration of ways in which politicians and political parties should communicate with their voters. The focus was mostly on strong personalities and leaders of the political parties who were associated with the regime’s transformation and who thus enjoyed high popularity. Foreign advisers often worked in the region to teach new or renewed political parties how to run campaigns. An especially positive ethos, enthusiasm for a democratic regime and the belief that everyone will do better were typical. On the other hand, campaigns organised by in-house (party members), or at least domestic, consultants, began to dominate after the initial engagement of foreign advisors. In this period, the main elements of election campaigns were meetings and rallies, billboards and leaflets, and television debates. In all countries, free airtime on public television was available to the running parties. In Poland, for example, it was an important element of election campaigns, but it was not very attractive in the Czech Republic. Greater shifts in campaigning were brought about in the early twenty-­ first century. Along with changes in the party system (Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) or the influence of intra-party changes (the Czech Republic and the case of ČSSD), the election campaigns have become significantly more

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professional, and foreign consultants have again had a larger role. In Poland, a major breakthrough happened in the 2005 elections, in the Czech Republic in 2006, and in Hungary and Slovakia the shift was present mainly in the 2010 elections. After a phase where campaigns were more focused on socio-economic issues, their emphasis shifted back towards leaders and personality once again. Political parties started to use public opinion polls regularly, and social media gradually began to appear in the arsenal of parties’ communication channels (most of them were in use by 2010). From then on, we also increasingly encounter populism in the region, whether in the form of new political parties or the adaptation of populist appeals and rhetoric by established parties. The roots of populism can be traced to the economic recession and, later, in the migration issue. Relationship marketing has become increasingly important throughout the region, but it has manifested itself differently. While in Slovakia, the government party SMER organised various events for its supporters, in the Czech Republic, social media began to demonstrate closer contact with voters and supporters, especially in the case of ANO and Andrej Babiš. On the other hand, Fidesz in Hungary began to use so-called national consultations, which served mainly tactics of agenda setting and citizen persuasion. During the more recent elections, social media became one of the most important communication channels; Twitter is the favourite among opinion leaders, while Facebook became the main channel in which to reach voters and the general public for many political parties and politicians.

PART III

The Balkans

CHAPTER 13

Characteristics of the Balkans 1989–2019 in South East Europe: Dancing in a Vicious Circle? Věra Stojarová

The transformation of the non-democratic regimes in South East Europe started rather violently. Bulgaria was the only country spared from a high number of casualties, unlike its neighbours. The revolution in Romania belonged among the most violent, taking place in the late 1980s; the death toll surpassed one thousand and left the communist leader Ceausescu and his wife executed. In Yugoslavia, the death of Tito in 1980 meant an abandonment of the ideas of brotherhood and unity; the communist ideology was swapped for nationalism, and the country disintegrated very rapidly. The first to declare independence was Slovenia, followed by Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Slovenia was fortunate to be rather ethnically homogenous and the war for independence lasted only ten days. In Croatia, the war between the Croats and the ethnic Serbs, supported by Serbia, lasted until 1995 and resulted in the Serbian national minority dropping from twelve to five per cent. The situation in BiH was far more difficult: Bosniaks wanted an independent V. Stojarová (*) Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_13

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country, Serbs wanted to stay with Serbia while the Croats were looking for support in Zagreb. The war ended with the Dayton Peace Agreement, which meant the end of the war but not a real resolution of the conflict. An international protectorate keeps an eye on the status quo while the stalemate is preserved: Bosniaks would like to keep the country as it is, Serbs would like to declare an independent Republika Srpska, while the Croats demand a third entity, and the whole country remains in deadlock. The end of war in BiH also meant the beginning of another war in Kosovo. The Albanians felt betrayed not to be incorporated in the Dayton Peace Agreement, and the conflict only terminated with the engagement of NATO in 1999. The country was put under international protectorate, and in 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, being recognised by over a hundred states. Similar to Bosnia, the conflict was not resolved as Kosovo has yet to be recognised among others by Serbia, Russia, and some of the EU states facing irredentist tendencies. In 2013, the Brussels Agreement on the normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo was signed—still without much progress in bilateral relations, preserving the stalemate between Serbia and Kosovo. Even the end of the Kosovo crisis has not brought lasting stability to the region. In early 2000, a period of unrest in Kosovo took place in parallel with an armed uprising in the neighbouring Presevo Valley, where a branch of the Kosovo Albanian guerrillas tried to repeat the successful Kosovo scenario (Stojar 2010). In the same year, there was a change of regimes in both Croatia and Serbia, and a new attempt to move the countries to democracy was promised. Nevertheless, none of the countries became fully democratic; the EU member Croatia has seen clear illiberal practices and democratic backsliding (Bieber 2018; Hasić and Karabegović 2018). In 2001, an ethnic conflict broke out in Macedonia; the demands of the ethnic Albanians were satisfied temporarily by the Ohrid Framework Agreement, so Macedonia, after resolving its identity issue with Bulgaria, faced ‘only’ the name concern with Greece. In 2003, the Treaty of Belgrade was concluded, which redefined relations between Serbia and Montenegro; in 2006, Montenegro declared independence and the surviving Serb-Montenegrin Confederation ceased to exist. June 2018 brought a significant change in Macedonian-Greek relations via a new name agreement: the Republic of North Macedonia. South East Europe has always been a space in which the various interests of powers have met, and the present is no exception. In particular,

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Russia, Turkey, China, the Arab states, the United States, the European Union, and the North Atlantic Alliance are currently involved in geopolitical competition for influence in the Balkans. Russia’s interests are not limited solely to economics, they are geopolitical, and de facto mean a return of Russia’s approach to the Balkans as one of their foreign policy priority regions. The Balkans are perceived as a space representing a buffer zone in which Russian interests are permanently present and in which a zero-sum game is involved. This policy is contrary to the that of the European Union, which is multidimensional and multipurpose, focusing on a win-win strategy and mutual interests, a multipolar approach, unlike the Russian one, which continues conceptions of a clash of civilisations or the traditional superpower role of Russia. Turkey, like Russia, is involved in major projects which have economic and political influence and are particularly interested in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Although Turkey is de facto competing with Russia for influence in the region, these two countries are still able to cooperate in their position and seek to limit the European Union’s influence in the Balkans (Konrad Adenuer Stiftung 2018; Petritsch 2018; Mulaosmanović et al. 2018). Like Turkey, Saudi Arabia has been trying to build a proxy community in the country for the last twenty years thanks to the influx of a new Islamic intelligentsia which has been educated in the theological institutions of the Middle East. Especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, there has been a strong Islamisation of a segment of the population, importing a radical concept of Islam compared to contemporary secular notions, thanks to, among other things, growing tourism from the Arab countries and real estate purchases by buyers from the Middle East. China is the last important country in the Balkans. While it is a late comer on the Balkan scene, it proceeds strategically, systematically, and with a long-term perspective. The interests of China, along with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Russia are contending with those of the European Union and NATO. Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria became NATO members in 2004, while Albania entered the Alliance with Croatia in 2009 and Montenegro in 2017. North Macedonia is currently (2019) in the process of joining NATO, leaving BiH as the only remaining identified aspirant from the region being engaged in the Membership Action Plan. The only countries left in the power vacuum are Serbia and Kosovo, so it would appear that NATO is winning this game with Russia.

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The path towards the European Union is not that straightforward. Slovenia joined the European Union in 2004 and Romania along with Bulgaria in the following accession round in 2007. The last country which joined the European Union was Croatia in 2013. In 2018, the European Union set itself the objective of integrating Serbia and Montenegro by 2025; Greece’s agreement with North Macedonia would unlock the integration process and push North Macedonia towards the European Union. Nevertheless, for all of the countries desperately waiting to join the EU club for the past thirty years, including BiH, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Kosovo, when looking at developments within the European Union and the region, the path to Europe still remains long and nowhere in sight. The progress of the remaining six Western Balkan states towards membership has so far been very slow. Furthermore, we have seen clear democratic backsliding in the region, so optimism about upcoming membership seems to be premature as all EU aspirants would have to change their track and deliver difficult and key reforms in democratic development in order to reach the goal of a liberal democracy. The fact that the democratic façade remains and pressure mechanisms on the media, judiciary, civil sector contribute to the erosion of democracy is intriguing. Governing parties have created an uneven playing field with the aim of remaining in power indefinitely. The six Balkan states seem to be captured by a strong executive, and a society based on networks helps to foster the supremacy of the executive, which seems to penetrate the everyday lives of citizens. Control over the media is essential for illiberal regimes, as they provide twisted information in the form of Potemkin villages, reinforcing and sublimating the merits of the ruling elite and covering up the bad deeds of the incumbents. The illiberal regimes are further legitimised through EU summits and meetings with European politicians. As we have seen, the last thirty years have been rather turbulent in South East Europe. Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Romania have been the fortunate ones that have joined both the European Union and NATO. Most of the other countries have joined NATO, but the path towards the European Union is not that easy; the countries of the region are so interconnected, their fate is somehow bound together. In order to become EU members, the conflict over Kosovo along with future of BiH must be resolved and the illiberal regimes must be dismantled. Until then, all of the states will remain dancing in a rather vicious circle.

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References Bieber, Florian. 2018. Patterns of Competitive Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans. East European Politics 34 (3): 337–354. https://doi.org/10.1080/2 1599165.2018.1490272. Hasić, Jasmin, and Dženeta Karabegović. 2018. Elite Responses to Contentious Politics on the Subnational Level: The 2014 Bosnian Protests. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 18 (3): 367–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14683857.2018.1489609. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. 2018. The Influence of External Actors in the Western Balkans A Map of Geopolitical Players. Sankt Augustin. https://www.kas.de/c/ document_library/get_file?uuid=194afc48-b3be-e3bc-d1da-02771a223f73& groupId=252038. Mulaosmanović, Admir, Mirsad Karić, Emil Knezović, Ahmed Kulanić, Almir Mustafić, and Hamza Preljević. 2018. Bosna i Hercegovina i Berlinski proces: Analiza stanja ključnih procesa u BiH před Londonsku konferenciju 2018. Balkan Studies Center Sarajevo. https://bsc.ius.edu.ba/sites/default/files/bosna_i_ hercegovina_i_berlinski_proces_web.pdf. Petritsch, Wolfgang. 2018. Geopolitik am Balkan. China, Russland, Türkei und die arabischen Golfstaaten als Akteure in Südosteuropa. Europäische Rundschau 46 (3): 23–37. Stojar, Richard. 2010. Albánský separatismus a jeho regionální implikace: od použití ideologických a politických nástrojů k efektivní aplikaci terorismu a guerilly. In Terorismus: pokus o porozumění, ed. Emil Souleimanov, 258–288. Praha: Sociologické nakladatelství.

CHAPTER 14

Albania Afrim Krasniqi

Country Overview Albania is still considered an emerging democracy (Freedom House 2018) and a parliamentary republic. After the Second World War until December 1990, Albania applied a monolithic party-state system, with its Labour Party functioning in practice as the sole actual political agent and governing alternative for the country. Starting in 1991, over its 28 years of modern parliamentary democracy, Albania held nine rounds of parliamentary elections, seven local government elections, and three direct referenda. Since the first pluralistic elections of 1991 to the last parliamentary elections of 2017, Albania has changed its electoral systems on several occasions: It went from a pure majoritarian system (1991) to a mixed majoritarian system (1992–2005), and from that to a regional proportional system (2009–2017). Albanian politics is dominated by two traditional parties—the Socialist Party (SP) and the Democratic Party (DP). Both parties have spent 13 years each being responsible for running the country. On one occasion they governed Albania in coalition with each other. The DP and SP usually control between 80–90 per cent of the seats in parliament (Krasniqi 2013, 122). A. Krasniqi (*) Albanian Institute for Political Studies, Tirana, Albania © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_14

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A. KRASNIQI

Several attempts to establish a third political pole in Albania have proved unsuccessful. There is one single notable exception to this rule: The Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI), a breakaway fraction of the SP was able to function as kingmaker in the 2009 and 2013 elections. Nonetheless, all remaining seven parliamentary elections were dominated almost singlehandedly by either the SP or the DP, which has led, with no major setbacks, to the establishment of generally stable ruling majorities. Since 1991, the Communist Party of Albania has never managed to gain a parliamentary mandate. Albania notably lacks nationalistic, religious, radical, or populist parties (Krasniqi 2017, 141). In general, most of the non-­mainstream parties are created as a result of small numbers of individuals splitting from either the SP or the DP. Albania’s key national priority is EU membership. There are no Eurosceptic or anti-EU parties in the country (Krasniqi 2018, 134). The international presence in Albania, especially the US and EU missions, plays a considerable role in domestic politics and enjoys public support. Since 2009, Albania has been a member of NATO. It has also been a candidate for EU membership as of 2014. Albania’s progress has undergone turbulent times and periodical political crises. Of these, the most severe was in 1997, when violent riots led to widespread chaos, culminating in a short civil war that ended with the deployment of an international military expedition. In terms of electoral campaign management, Albania went through similar development stages as other post-communist countries. In its campaign practices, beginning in 1991, Albania has mixed its Eastern school of public and political communication tradition with attempts to mimic American and Italian electoral campaigns. Its political culture, social milieu, electoral system, and political situation, meanwhile, have influenced the way political campaigning is pursued in the country.

Legal Framework Albania’s electoral legislation has undergone frequent changes. From 1991 to 1997, three different electoral laws were adopted. They were twice amended upon entering into force. From the adoption of the 1998 constitution until 2017, three Electoral Codes were approved (1998, 2003, and 2008); these were amended seven times in a row. At present Albania is about to introduce further changes to its current Electoral Code, which takes into account the introduction of electronic technology

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in the voting process and the participation of Albanian voters living abroad (they represent more than 35 per cent of the country’s population). These changes have also affected legislation regulating the use of the media for political campaigning, relations between media and political parties, paid political advertisements, and campaign donations. Since 1998, the (different versions) of Albania’s electoral law have stated that ‘the electoral campaign starts 30 days and ends 24 hours before E-day’. Electoral campaigns can take place only during ‘electoral periods’ stretching from 15 March to 30 June or from 15 September to 30 November. The amendments introduced in 2008 provide that the decree setting the election day ought to be issued six months in advance so as to enable political parties to develop and unveil their electoral strategies. The legislation in force allows for electoral polls whilst prohibiting the publication of their results five days prior to the Election Day. The Constitution of Albania (1998, Art. 9) stipulates that ‘the financial resources of the parties and their expenditures are always made public’. The Electoral Code (2008, Art. 91/5) provides that a political party shall not spend more than ten times the highest amount of financing one electoral competitor has received through public funding sources. Income from donations and electoral expenditures should be processed via special bank accounts monitored by the Central Elections Commission. All subsequent electoral legislation did not alter the principles related to the provision of free airtime for political advertisements in public media outlets. In 1992, the Electoral Law (1992, Art. 53) provided that the public television broadcaster was obliged to produce, free of charge, special broadcasts during the electoral campaign period. The law provided that ‘the time available for electoral competitors shall be calculated proportionally to their number of candidates running at the national level’. It also provided that 24 hours prior to the voting ‘all parties shall provide free of charge a short summary of their programmes and their messages to the voters’. The current Electoral Code (2018, art. 80) upholds the obligation of the public television and public radio broadcasters to provide, free of charge, airtime for the parties registered to take part in the elections. The parties who control more than 20 per cent of the parliamentary seats receive 30 minutes of free airtime on the public radio and television. The other parliamentary parties are entitled to no less than 15 minutes, whilst the non-parliamentary parties have an entitlement of ten free minutes on public television and radio. The law in force provides that free airtime is to

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be allocated in the timeframe 6 P.M. until 10 P.M during the electoral period until 24 hours prior to the beginning of the voting. The same obligation for allocated airtime applies to private media as well; this obligation has been subject to debates and criticisms from several private television operators. The Electoral Code allows parties to use paid television ads provided that their total allocated time does not exceed 90 minutes for each registered party. Throughout the course of a parliamentary election, parties may buy up to 45 minutes each (EC, Art. 84). Different from the free-of-­ charge airtime, paid ads can be broadcasted from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. and from 9:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. on radio and television. The OSCE/ ODIHR has expressed its criticisms related to the provisions allowing for the broadcasting of political ads in news editions and has requested their abolishment in the last 2015 local government elections and in the 2017 parliamentary elections (ODIHR/OSCE 2017, 19).

Historical Overview of Campaigns In many ways, the electoral campaigns of the first years of the transition from communism were extensions of communist period communication models. The first non-state owned and non-communist newspaper, the official newspaper of the new opposition party (DP), was founded in January 1991. The Labour Party (the Communist Party) continued to keep its own newspaper under the same name (the People’s Voice), which was established in 1948. The two newspapers evolved into the primary means of political communication in the new pluralistic environment (Zguri 2015, 10). A few other newspapers were established by smaller political parties over the same period. Albania’s media landscape continued to remain comparatively underdeveloped until the mid-nineties, with only one television channel, the public broadcaster, which broadcasted only a limited number of hours in the afternoon. The first electoral campaign of 1991 saw only one televised political communication format heavily controlled by the government (Biberaj 2011, 145). Each party was allocated a given number of minutes to present its electoral programme. No debates between candidates and no special reports on the electoral campaign were produced. The parties ran their campaigns through massive public rallies that articulated a type of discourse which heavily borrowed from the communist period (Londo 2015, 65). Albanian editions of Voice of America and the BBC constituted the media

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with the highest audience and the most influence on public opinion, even though taken together they did not exceed 60 minutes of airtime a day. The 1992 electoral campaign was enriched by the contributions of political assistance missions from partner political parties in Western Europe (the British and Greek Conservative parties, the Italian Socialist Party, as well as international political organisations such as the National Democratic Institute and by the International Republican Institute) (Krasniqi 2009, 84). The new players started to provide training in political communication and introduced for the first time the use of electoral advertisement materials such as banners, slogans, electoral messaging, and personalised electoral profiling for leading candidates. As the 1992 elections were more of a national referendum on the change in the political system rather than actual parliamentary elections, professional electoral marketing and investment in building a distinctive image was rather useless and unnecessary at that point. The referendum on the 1994 constitutional amendments marked a significant shift for Albania in the type of electoral campaigning. The government and the ruling majority parties held massive rallies to support the proposed constitutional amendments. This experience marked the end of the massive rallies and the introduction of the full control of ruling majorities over the public and state-run media. Albania’s third round of pluralist elections in 1996 was characterised by the arrival of new, political consultants from the United States, Switzerland, and Italy, introduced by the ruling Democratic Party (Krasniqi 2009, 85). Electoral rallies started to look more attractive, driven by concerts presenting well-known artists and singers followed by speeches by political leaders and the presentation of key candidates and excerpts of the party programmes. The concert-based political marketing concept nicknamed ‘Vision 2000’ became so popular that voters started to consider electoral campaigns as a free way of attending musical events in their locations. The success of the ruling centre-right government coalition, despite problems in the election, was accentuated by the fact that the left-wing opposition kept to the traditional style of campaigning, thus creating a large gap in terms of contents and forms. The 1997 socio-political crisis forced early elections and, this time, no sophisticated electoral marketing was possible, no foreign assistance was sought, and no organisational innovations ensued. The elections were marked by the classical open-air rallies, by a harsh political discourse, and by acts of violence (Biberaj 2011, 433). The only noticeable advancement

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A. KRASNIQI

was related to the way in which print and electronic media, especially international radio stations, covered the electoral campaigns, which had a considerable influence on domestic public opinion. The 2000 and 2001 electoral campaigns saw for the first time the appearance of private television broadcasters. Albania’s first high-profile political debate held on television took place on 21 September 2000 between the SP-supported candidate, Edi Rama, and the DP candidate, Besnik Mustafaj, for the position of Tirana mayor (Krasniqi 2006, 311). This was the first and the last high-profile debate to take place live (or recorded) in Albania from 1991 to the present. The 2001 campaign featured additional ‘innovative’ electoral marketing components such as the introduction of young supporters in the candidates’ background, political leaders playing musical instruments at youth gatherings, politicians appearing in casual dress in public, and so on. The 2005 parliamentary elections brought new developments to Albania’s campaigning in terms of electoral messaging: Among these new developments, the most important consisted of a reliance on a condensed master slogan such as ‘With clean hands’, to indicate the anti-corruption drive of the government alternative proposed by the opposition centre-­right challengers, and the harmonisation of this message with new political entries, mostly from the new generation, who were actually untainted by traditional party politics (and the implied corruption of the latter) (Progni 2017). The 2005 campaign changed forever the model of political marketing in Albania, and with that, the way politics were done. It introduced a growing reliance on media, the Internet, and on imported Western political management expertise. Private media, internet, and phone messaging made their first massive appearance in Albania’s political campaigning. All major parties established electoral campaign teams directly attached to the party leaders, staffed with experts and pollsters from the United States and Europe. The trend continued in the 2009 elections, which saw political parties competing for electoral visibility rather than for drawing support through improvements in the content of their manifestos. For the first time ever, the main political parties devised electoral hymns, which their supporters sung at all the rallies. These elections saw the most intense use of billboards and electoral posters recorded in Albania, which has remained unmatched ever since. The race for the superior image, the intensive use of colours and party slogans, was combined with professionally organised concerts and massive text messaging to voters via mobile devices (Londo 2015, 74).

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Virtual Campaigning: Impact on Political Behaviour Albania’s 2013 national elections saw the consolidation of what first appeared back in 2005: the assertion of itself as ‘the marketing revolution’ of electoral campaigning. The 2013 elections saw the first fully ‘television-­ based’ campaigns, supported by internet-based platforms and the beginning of the proliferation of political campaigning over social media. Still, the main focus was not yet social media. For the first time ever, political parties did not engage in actual electoral rallies or real grassroots meetings. Instead, they staged electoral meet and greet events, scheduled and directed by television producers. From 2013 on, media was not allowed to report from electoral rallies and about campaign activities. Instead, political parties established their media teams, in charge of recording, editing, and supplying the media with ready-made tapes on the campaign (Zguri 2015, 42). In the period 2013–2017, the SP and DP decided to close down their party newspapers, which until that point were considered a unique official source of political information and the platform for advancing electoral proposals. Instead, mainstream parties focused their public relations efforts on the massive use of new (on-line) communication platforms, which saw exponential growth. Political communication flooded the new social media (OSCE/ODIHR 2013, 2017). Instead of big rallies, all parties started to improvise small-scale meetings with handpicked audiences based on a dedicated and standardised script written by the party’s communication specialist. The purpose of these meetings was to produce readymade television coverage. Competition between political leaders in terms of increasing their number of followers over social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, became tougher than real world competition that reached out to voters with boots on the ground. The parties noticed, however, that the cost for billboards, electoral offices, posters, and other printed campaign materials used in the 2015 campaign had skyrocketed; therefore, all big political competitors agreed to drastically cut down on these costs by regulating the size, placement, and number of billboards and by imposing other restrictions on electoral marketing materials (OSCE/ODIHR 2017). All campaigns are now focused on the leader and his image. The most recent three campaigns have been positioned so as to advertise the image of the party leader in the best possible way. Their appearance has been curated down to the smallest detail; care towards their remarks, jokes,

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A. KRASNIQI

catchwords, articulation, and outfits have prevailed over programmatic issues and electoral promises. Simply put, technology and professional campaigning has not made campaigns more participatory, it has made them more attractive. International Expertise in Political Campaigns A relatively new development with regard to the strategic management of electoral campaigns in Albania relates to the active inclusion of lobbying companies in the process of drafting and implementing electoral strategies and electoral marketing. U.S. and British lobbying companies made their first appearances in Albanian affairs in 2001. At first, the Government of Albania contracted and assigned them to improve the image of the government, but the political parties then requested their services themselves. Well known US companies, directly or indirectly involved in electoral campaigns over the last decade are to be noticed in this regard:, spring to the eye: Podesta Group, Barnes & Thornburg LLP, Ballard Partners, Arthur J. Finkelstein Associates Inc., Muzin Capitol, McKeon Group, and so on (Fjerza 2014, 44). In the 2009, 2013, and 2017 elections, Albania’s main political parties (SP, DP, and SMI) contracted lobbying companies, mostly from the United States, but also from Britain and Italy. Another indicator pointing to the decisive shift of political parties from programme-based campaigning towards pure electoral marketing is the money trail. Beginning with the 2009 elections, the budgets assigned to public relations services have taken the lion’s share of electoral campaign expenditures. Data from the Central Elections Commission (CEC) show that the funds spent on lobbying services and international consultancies are of comparable size to budgets assigned for the organisation and promotion of the party’s events and activities. Taken together, they constitute the bulk of the party’s expenditures. In the first decade of Albania’s transition (1990–2000) the expenditures of political parties for marketing and publicity were minimal. The shift towards spending the bulk of a party’s financial resources to procure consultancy and lobbying services, strategic communications, and public relations services is a major indicator showing a clear trend in the adoption of new approaches towards the way politics are done in Albania. Albania does not have any specific legislation on lobbying, third-party financing, or on party financing through external donors. The lack of specific legislation and the lack of financial transparency have led to a

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situation in which most of the lobbying and consultancy contracts are made public by US financial authorities based on requests for information under FARA; hence, the Albanian public usually learns about them only upon the conclusion of elections. Electronic Media, Digital Campaigning, and Elections Albania’s exceptionally high number of non-parliamentary parties and the high number of media outlets with a minimal share in the overall national audience bear witness to a deeply fragmented and, in many ways, dysfunctional body politic. The periodical data on the role of media in electoral campaigns and party disbursement for media-related services shows that the funds spent on mediatised electoral services have multiplied in comparison to the near past. The techniques and the quality of mediatised electoral advertisements have advanced at a very quick pace. Thanks to the influence of the Italian media and US and British political consultants, electoral ads have dominated public information outlets during campaigns since 2009. The increased use of electoral ads during campaigns has led, inevitably, to the phenomenon of negative political advertising. At first, such ads were denigratory and loaded with harsh political rhetoric. Later, they were transformed into more moderate television spots which resorted to humour or other alternative ways of ridiculing political adversaries. Most of the negative ads were used by large parties against each other, by top candidates in large constituencies, and by new political parties against traditional ones. Ideological differences between the main political forces have substantially narrowed over the last three electoral campaigns. As a result, parties have targeted all social strata alike, and tried to obtain votes everywhere by running on highly similar programmes. The SP slogan in the 2009 elections was ‘Beyond left and right’. The SP won more proportional votes, but the electoral system favoured the DP in terms of parliamentary mandates. As a result of the electoral system, the DP, a party with a conservative orientation, was able to establish a majority coalition by joining forces with the left-wing SMI, a breakaway faction of the SP. In the 2013 and 2017 elections, the SP and the DP entered into coalitions with parties coming from opposite sides of the political spectrum. Hence why they carefully avoided ideological identification during their electoral campaigns.

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The loss of political identity also came as a result of a dwindling number of party supporters at the grass roots. In the period 1991–1996, the key topics for the electoral campaigns were supplied through ideological confrontation related to the recent communist past. An analysis of the political programmes and media coverage from that period shows that in general voters tended to follow black and white perceptions of political parties and of political opponents. The anti-communist discourse and the pro-EU integration discourse received popular support and resonated with the electorate. Key topics during electoral campaigns between 2001 and 2013 were EU integration, anti-corruption, employment, and good governance. The manifestos were based on attacks and criticisms of political opponents, coupled with theoretical campaign promises, avoiding references to numbers and deadlines that could be monitored and measured. After 2013, integration did not constitute an electoral campaign topic any longer. For the first time a public debate on taxation was recorded. Left-wing parties supported progressive taxation, whilst those of the centre-­right supported a flat tax. Other economic and social issues, including employment, privatisation, social policies, education, and health received practically no difference in treatment from the opposing political camps. The ideological and substantial gap was filled through aggressive electoral marketing and different, well-resourced PR-based strategies to appeal to voters. The competition between the mainstream parties was carried over from the public squares onto social media. The rivalry was (and still is) very harsh: It is all about finding new ways to appeal to a virtual audience. When the DP lost the 2013 elections, the top politician of the outgoing right wing, Sali Berisha, twice the President of Albania and twice the country’s premier, announced that he would rely on ‘digital citizens’ linked to his Facebook account. Berisha used this platform to publish, on a daily basis, reports about scandals and information about corrupt affairs based on reports sent to him via his cell phone or his Facebook messenger application by concerned citizens. At the beginning, not much attention was paid, but once some of these denunciations proved to have merit and, the publication of the posts from ‘digital citizens’ became a main sources for media stories, directly feeding into the daily political debate, ‘digital storytelling’ became the weapon of choice for a host of politicians.

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Recent Trends The 2017 parliamentary elections took place amidst heated competition between party leaders as well as political parties in new media. Facebook took the majority of the political attention, covering well over 90 per cent of electoral activities, followed by Twitter, which specialised in short statements aimed at foreign policy stakeholders and international media. For the 2017 elections, political parties created over 200 new portals and contracted professional companies tasked to produce online content consisting of videos, text, and photos. In April 2016, the leading party of the ruling coalition, the Socialist Party, created a new special position: the digital organisational secretary, tasked with establishing an internal communication system connecting all Socialists from the party headquarters to the periphery using new technologies and new media. The proceedings of the 2017 electoral campaign and the developments of last two year’s demonstrate that by now party leaders don’t need the media anymore, they are the media. The 2017 electoral campaign saw not a single case of independent news covering political activities. Political parties established their own television studios, staffed by film directors, make-up artists, speech writers, and screenplay assistants. These studios produced ready-made materials to be dispatched to the media in-line with a well-developed and actively updated communication plan. Nonetheless, in 2017, all outlets admitted defeat and followed this ready-made format. Such a total victory for the ready-made videos were due to the media outlets’ desire to save money on staff and to rely on materials already produced for them as a way to attract more audiences through high-definition, high quality footage, produced at no cost (and coming with no editorial responsibility) for them. Over 2018, Prime Minister Rama announced the establishment of a new electronic media outlet: ERTV (an acronym standing most likely for Edi Rama Television). This outlet was to be an internet-based, live Facebook channel for the PM to directly communicate with the public. In the beginning, Rama used the channel for weekly appearances, with declarations and press conferences. Later, he used it for all of his appearances as prime minister of the country, including his interaction with the ­parliament, his appearances in television shows, visits abroad, and so on. The same communication method, yet without the permanent team of

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journalists, is followed by the opposition, which broadcasts its main events live through a dedicated Facebook channel. The surprisingly massive wave of migration that started to take its toll on Albania in 2014, with hundreds of thousands of middle- and lower-­ class citizens leaving the country every year is fed by many individuals, deeply disappointed in the two main political parties. They continue to wield monopoly power over the voting system, the electoral administration, party financing, media, and, last but not least, on a well-consolidated spoils system, which feeds on public and private sector jobs and concessions at the local and central level. The upcoming electoral campaigns are expected to bring two new challenges to the Albanian political and media scene: (1) growing political pressure on new media, coming as a result of the drive by old political actors to crush all media outlets outside their direct reach and control, and (2) the risk associated with the prevalence of fake news, which is also related to media content produced externally and funnelled into the chaotic online media community.

Conclusion In 30 years of electoral campaigning in Albania, as explained in the Table  14.1,  the content and arrangements behind electoral campaigns have substantially changed. They have reflected the pace of social and economic development, whilst being directly influenced by the highly unstable political environment and the ever-changing electoral systems. In the first phase of its transition to democracy, roughly overlapping with the decade between 1990 and 2000, Albania’s electoral campaigning efforts were primarily geared towards ensuring the massive participation of party supporters in electoral rallies, towards the dissemination of political information through official party newspapers, and towards influencing public opinion through direct control of the (only) state-run electronic media. The second decade of Albania’s transition saw an increase in efforts to mimic US and Italian campaigns. ‘Classic’ rallies were superseded by a mix of PR-guided political events which saw the widespread use of concerts and the advent of the first image management and electoral marketing efforts, in addition to a more sophisticated approach towards voter outreach. The third decade of transition saw the emergence of professional electoral marketing, with campaigns based on image management focused

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exclusively on the party leader as the primary carrier of the party’s image, social media management, and an increased virtualisation of the body politic. Top politicians and political parties do not need the media anymore— they are the media. A major change in the way campaigns are run in Albania is related to the switch from a mixed majoritarian system to a closed-list proportional system, which identifies the party with its all-­ powerful leader, who single-handedly decides on who is going to be on the list of party candidates and who will get the spoils in case of electoral success. The ‘virtual’ and ‘Americanised’ campaign models, implemented in a society that is still very distant from technological and developed nations, has significantly hampered the content of the political debates by considerably damaging the credentials of the mainstream political parties as actual carriers of real and meaningful governing alternatives (Kajsiu 2009, 71). This brief study argues that over the last two election cycles (2013, 2017) the main political parties severed their direct links to traditional voters and party loyalists by shifting their attention towards swing voters, young voters and first-time voters—by (miss) using new technologies and social media platforms to this end. The unchallenged, almost absolute power of the two main parties in the field of electoral administration and in all domains of social life has prevented the establishment of new parties and has hampered the competitiveness of the Albanian political system. This has also blocked any possibility for effective reformation of the traditional political parties.

1997

1996

1992

1991

Basic campaign characteristics

Still campaign with characteristics of No premodern campaigns such as use of public address systems, posters and leaflets. The new element introduced was the entertaining aspects, combining meetings with entertaining music and concerts. Mixed system: Urgent, not fully prepared campaign, No Majority FPTP with all characteristics of the 1991 (115) + proportional campaign.  (40).

Mixed system: Majority FPTP (115) + proportional (40).

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Campaign with characteristics of Yes premodern campaigns; not professional, direct contact with voter; amateur posters. Mixed system: 100 Similar to the 1991 campaign, adding a Yes seats majority and 40 small degree of assistance from western seats proportional. political parties and models.

100% majority, 2 rounds.

Year of Electoral system election

Table 14.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Albania

Public order, pyramid scheme, civil conflict, stability, national reconciliation.

No

Ideological conflicts, Yes integration in Europe, change of system, rehabilitation of ex- political prisoners, private ownership. Socio-economic No issues, ideological conflicts, privatisation.

(continued)

Yes

Yes

No

No

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Pro and against No communists, ideological conflicts.

Main campaign topics

192  A. KRASNIQI

2005

2001

Basic campaign characteristics

No

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Almost identical to the 1992 campaign, Yes with partial elements of entertainment shows, preserving direct contact with voter, use of public address systems, posters and leaflets.  Mixed system: Elements of the modern campaign were Yes Majority FPTP introduced, with professional marketing (115) + proportional companies, with ad agencies, financial (40). support; among the most used tools were public meetings, public address systems, posters and leaflets. 

Mixed system: Majority FPTP (115) + proportional (40).

Year of Electoral system election

Table 14.1 (continued)

Corruption, justice and change of situation, integration, transparency.

Socio-economic issues, privatisation, public service, good governance.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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Elements of the modern campaign were Yes introduced, with professional marketing companies, with ad agencies, with lobbying companies, financial support, Yes exit polls, surveys and polls offered by international companies. Among the most used tools were the replacement of public rallies with town halls, use of public address systems, posters and leaflets, TV advertising and use of social media.

PR-List (140)

PR-List (140)

PR-List (140)

2013

2017

Yes

No

No

No

Issues Candidates

2009

Campaign focus

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 14.1 (continued)

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Socio-economic Yes issues, liberalisation of visas. Socio-economic Yes issues, flat and progressive tax, legalisation of housing, public services, wealth system, education system, anti-corruption. Socio-economic Yes issues, legalisation of housing, public services, one party in power (without coalition).

Main campaign topics

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2005

2001

1997

1996

1992

Leaflets billboards, polls, only one TV broadcaster, 10–12 newspapers. Leaflets, international radio, only one TV broadcaster, 10–12 newspapers. Polls, political debates on TV, political advertisements on TV. Polls, political debates on TV, political advertisements on TV. Small meetings, concerts, telemarketing, door-to-door canvassing.

Rallies, concerts, telemarketing, door-to-door canvassing.

Rallies, door-to-door canvassing.

Rallies, concerts, door-to-door canvassing.

Rallies, door-to-door canvassing.

Rallies, door-to-door canvassing.

1991

Leaflets, only one TV broadcaster, only 3–4 newspapers. Leaflets, only one TV broadcaster, only 5–6 newspapers.

Types of campaign activities

Year of Type of election communication (ads and media)

Table 14.1 (continued)

Yes

50%

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Use of polling Campaign and research spending techniques? limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, but limited

Yes but limited

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Free Possibility airtime to buy on public airtime media

(continued)

It was more election “against” government not “pro” opposition

The government got everything under control and won the second round

It was an extraordinary situation, not normal election

It was more referenda against old and for news system as “normal” election The government have a strong control about the election und median

Only 3 months in new pluralism

Notes

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2017

2013

Small meetings not rallies, concerts, Facebook, Twitter, telemarketing, polls, Facebook, Twitter, mobile telephones.

Small meetings not rallies, concerts, telemarketing, Facebook, Twitter, mobile telephones.

Small meetings not Rallies, concerts, telemarketing, door-to-door canvassing.

2009

Polls, political debates on TV, political advertisements on TV, political party hymns (songs) Polls, political debates on TV, political advertisements on TV, marketing companies. Polls, political debates on TV, political advertisements on TV, marketing companies.

Types of campaign activities

Year of Type of election communication (ads and media)

Table 14.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Use of polling Campaign and research spending techniques? limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Free Possibility airtime to buy on public airtime media

It was “formal” election after agreement before the election between two top rivals. Everyone knew who will win, the debate was about “how much”

It was more election “against” government not “pro” opposition

Very peaceful election, many concerts, many new forms of marketing in the election

Notes

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References Biberaj, Elez. 2011. Shqipëria në tranzicion. Rruga e vështirë drejt demokracisë 1990–2010. Tirana: AIIS. Electoral Code. 2008. The Electoral Code in Albania (with the Change 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017). Fjerza, Orjana. 2014. Impakti i marketingut politik në sjelljen e elektoratit rinor. PhD diss., University of Tirana. http://www.doktoratura.unitir.edu.al/wpcontent/uploads/2014/10/Doktoratura-Orjona-Fjeza-Fakulteti-EkonomiseDepartamenti-i-Marketingut.pdf. Freedom House. 2018. Report on Albania. https://freedomhouse.org/report/ freedom-world/2018/albania. Kajsiu, Blendi. 2009. Amerikanizmi i politikës ose rreziku i politikës mediatike. POLIS 8 (1): 68–79. Krasniqi, Afrim. 2006. Partitë Politike në Shqipëri 1912–2006. Tirana, Rilindja: ISP. ———. 2009. Zgjedhjet në Shqipëri 1912–2008. Tirana: Konica. ———. 2013. Sjellja zgjedhore dhe identifikimi i votës në Shqipëri. Në revistën “Illyrius”, Tirana, Albania, nr. 3, pp. 121–166. ———. 2017. Partite politike ne Shqiperi. In Politische Parteien, ed. Wilhelm Hofmeister and Kartsten Grabow, 84–96. Tirana: KAS. ———. 2018. Die politischen parteien Albaniens und Europa. In European Integration and News Anti-Europeanism, Vol III: Perceptions of External States on European Integration, ed. Patrick Moreau and Birte Wassenberg, 131–147. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Law No. 7556 On the election in the National People’s Assembly of the Republic of Albania. 4. 2. 1992 Official Gazette. Londo, Eva. 2015. Marketimi i fushatave elektorale ne median shqiptare. PhD diss., University of Tirana. http://www.doktoratura.unitir.edu.al/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Doktoratura-Eva-Londo-Fakulteti-i-HistoriFilologjise-Departamenti-i-Gazetarise.pdf. ODIHR/OSCE. 2013. Albania, Parliamentary Elections, 23 June 2013: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/106963. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2017. Albania, Parliamentary Elections, 25 June 2017: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/albania/346661. Accessed 20 June 2019. Progni, Luljeta. 2017. Fushata: ‘Town Hall’ dhe perëndimi i kohës së mitingjeve. MAPO, June 23 2017. http://www.mapo.al/fushata-town-hall-dhe-perendimi-i-kohes-se-mitingjeve/. Zguri, Rrapo. 2015. Marrëdhëniet mes medias dhe politikës në Shqipëri. Tirana: FES & Albanian Media Institute.

CHAPTER 15

Bosnia and Herzegovina Adnan Huskic ́

Country Overview Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (hereinafter referred to as Bosnia or BiH) democratisation consists of two distinct processes separated by the 1992– 1995 war. Pre-war democratisation culminated in the first democratic multiparty elections in BiH on 18 November 1990. The second (and assisted) democratisation process begins with the end of the Bosnian War in 1995 and the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace (hereinafter referred to as the Dayton Agreement) as well as with elections that followed quickly in 1996. These two events, the pre-war and first post-war elections, represent the two most important breaking points or milestone events on Bosnia’s thorny path towards democracy. Both would come to be characterised as an attempt to keep the ethnonationalist forces at bay, and both would see ethnonationalists winning by a landslide. After the first elections, the country was thrown into disarray and a bloody conflict, and after the second, and only through massive international activism, did the country manage to move forward. Still, the interethnic conflict, which had remained frozen, thawed and resurfaced as international activism subsided starting in 2006. A. Huskić (*) Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_15

199

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Bosnia’s political landscape on the eve of the first elections generally aligned along the dimension of continuity and change as the dominant topic in political discourse. A decision by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to lift a ban on establishing ethnonationalist parties resulted in the rise to prominence of three major ethnonationalist parties representing the largest ethnic groups, Muslims,1 Serbs, and Croats. While amongst themselves strongly diverging on the future of Yugoslavia and Bosnia’s place in it, which represented the second most important political issue of the day, the three ethnonationalist parties posed a unified democratic front against the Communists and their reformed brethren. Communists, on the other side, were weakened by the internal problems and increasing fragmentation along ethnic lines in Yugoslavia (Andjelic 2003, 124–172) and in Bosnia. Signs of the looming post-election interethnic disaster were quite visible in the three parties’ diametrically opposed political goals and occasional direct criticisms. Yet the unity required to topple the Communists and reformists managed to provide enough cohesion to keep the three together. All three ethnonationalist parties also suffered from internal conflicts which they managed to overcome successfully (Andjelic 2003). The landslide victory of ethnonationalists marked the beginning of a short and unhappy interethnic political marriage and the intensification of interethnic conflict. Fundamental differences and incompatible national(ist) goals, which had been put aside for the sake of achieving electoral success, exploded immediately after the elections and became the dominant topic in the public discourse. The deterioration of the overall political situation and the beginning of open hostilities would stop the democratisation process in its tracks, but it would also entrench and strengthen ethnic identities, turning them into central political identities following the end of the war in 1995. The Bosnian War ended with the signing of the US-sponsored Dayton Agreement on 21 November 1995 (formally signed in Paris on 14 December 1995). The first elections were supposed to be held within six to nine months of the agreement’s signing (United Nations 1995, Annex 3, Art. II). Unsurprisingly, these elections legalised and legitimised the dominance of the ethnic parties as they were held in an atmosphere of fear and insecurity shortly after the end of hostilities and amidst widespread 1  Muslims (usually labelled with a capital ‘M’) were officially recognized as a nation and constituent people in 1971.

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electoral fraud. Despite previous warnings by the UNHCR (Manning 2004); calls for postponement by a prominent international think tank (International Crisis Group 1996); and, generally, a negative assessment of the integrity of elections afterwards (Malcolm 1996), this hardly bothered anyone at the time. Early elections in Bosnia served a dual purpose: as an endorsement of the peace deal by domestic actors and as an initial step towards transferring ownership over governance back to domestic actors. Yet reducing international engagement in Bosnia to considerations of a narrow exit strategy hardly does it justice. As Manning says, the magnitude of commitment to changes through elections exhibited by the international community, attested to by years of commitment and billions of dollars spent producing change, testifies to the fact that the early elections in 1996 were not seen just as means to an exit strategy, but a more fundamental approach to post-war peacebuilding (Manning 2008, 76). The atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, but also widespread fraud, were among the reasons for a relatively high turnout of eighty per cent, and the three ethnic parties once again achieved a landslide victory.

Legal Framework The preconditions for conducting the first multiparty elections in 1990 encompassed major changes to the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (SRBiH) political system. Constitutional changes encompassed articles LIX to LXXX of the Constitution of SRBiH and the adoption of a number of laws and bylaws which enabled the conduct of free and competitive elections (Arnautović 1996, 12). Media access for political subjects to the official state channel, RTV SA2 (Radiotelevizija Sarajevo), was regulated by the Rules of Broadcasting Politics with regard to Pre-election and Election Activities during Multiparty Elections. RTV SA was considered to have been relatively well balanced at the time. Political parties competing for the Council of Citizens, the lower chamber of the SRBiH parliament, were given an option to choose two events to be given two minutes of coverage in the evening news. Most of the political parties’ other activities were covered in an even-handed manner in the regular late-night news. RTV SA also made 2  After independence, RTV SA was renamed RTV Bosnia and Herzegovina and then BHRT (Radiotelevizija Bosne i Hercegovine) after the war as a state public broadcasting service.

202 

A. HUSKIĆ

an agreement with RTV Zagreb and RTV Belgrade, whose broadcasts could be received within the BiH territory, to adjust their programmes in order to allow for fair media coverage during the campaign, which neighbouring broadcasters failed to honour in the end (Arnautović 1996, 69). Paid advertisements were allowed but limited to a total of five ads, each lasting a maximum of thirty seconds, for the duration of the campaign. To prevent grouping ads toward the end of the campaign, parties were able to broadcast only two ads per day. In accordance with the Election Law of SRBiH, RTV SA stopped broadcasting election information after the late-­ night news on Friday, 16 November, due to electoral silence. The first post-war elections took place on 16 September 1996. In accordance with Annex 3 of the Dayton Agreement, the OSCE was tasked with ‘adopt(ing) and put(ting) in place an elections program for BiH’ and requested ‘to supervise …the preparation and conduct of elections’ for all levels of government. To this end, the OSCE established the Provisional Election Commission consisting ‘of the Head of the OSCE Mission, the High Representative or his or her designee, representatives of the Parties, and such other persons as the Head of the OSCE Mission, in consultation with the Parties, may decide’ (United Nations 1995, Annex 3, Art. III). From 1996 to 2002 Bosnia was in a state of electoral frenzy as general elections for cantonal, entity, and state level were held every two years. Taking place against a backdrop of heavy international involvement, the high frequency of elections (including municipal elections) aimed to produce much needed political change in the relatively resilient political environment dominated by ethnonationalists. The OSCE and other international actors worked actively to promote a pluralism of political actors by establishing a relatively low threshold of three per cent and the Webster/Sainte-Laguë method of seat distribution, which favours smaller parties. The international community designed electoral rules which favoured compromise, cooperation, and multi-ethnic parties (Belloni 2004) by actively applying ‘funding and political restrictions on ethnonationalist parties while providing technical assistance and public support to those parties with less nationalist agendas’ (Hulsey 2015). However, as soon as the international grip loosened, processes started reversing and the main ethnonationalists (or their surrogates) soon regained ground. Efforts to try to steer people away from a solidified ethnic stratification in the end bore little fruit. The original mission was formally transferred to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Central Election Commission (CEC) in 2002 following the adoption of the Election Law by the House of Representatives of Parliament of BiH on 21 August and confirmed by the House of Peoples

15  BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 

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on 23 August 2001. Following the adoption of the Electoral Law by the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH in 2001, the Provisional Election Commission was replaced by the Election Commission, which changed its name in April 2006 to the Central Elections Commission. The first elections organized entirely by local authorities took place in 2006. Chapter 15 of the new (and current) Election Law sets a cap on the maximum amount to be spent campaigning based on voters’ figures in all electoral units in which the political subject has candidates. At the level of cantons the cap has been set at 0.20 BAM (~€ 0,10), whereas the cap for all other levels stretching from municipal to the BiH presidency and parliament amounts to 0.30 BAM (€0,15).3 Article 16.2. of the law further stipulates that media must ‘observe the principle of balance, fairness and impartiality’ while covering a campaign. Media are required to ensure that ‘no political entity shall have a privileged position with respect to another political entity’ (Article 16.3.2.) and, when reporting about candidates who currently occupy public positions, that they do it ‘with no reference to their candidacy for the elections or their party membership, whenever the information is about the activities that fall within the scope of activities of the body they represent’ (Article 16.3.3.). The order of appearance of political subjects in special programs is to be established by drawing a lot (Article 16.7.). Media can publish polls stating explicitly the basic information about the poll, such as who ordered and paid for the survey, who conducted the survey, the sample size and a possible tolerance, and the period when the survey the was conducted (Article 16.5.1.). The law also prescribes classical electoral silence which begins twenty-four hours before polling stations open and lasts until they close, whereas publishing public opinion research related to voting and elections is prohibited forty-eight hours prior to the opening of polling stations, remaining in effect until they close. 3  During the 2018 elections, in the largest canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovnia (FBiH), Tuzla, which had 131,036 eligible voters, the cap was set at 26,207 BAM or €13,399; for the Federation, with 2,093,784 registered voters, it was 628,135 BAM or €321,160; and at the state level, with 3,355,429 voters, it amounted to 1,006,628 BAM or €514,681. Total spending reported by major parties which had a candidate in most cantons as well as at both the FBiH and state levels was well below the caps—The Social Democratic Party (SDP) spent 1,338,114 BAM (€684,166) and the Party of Democratic action (SDA) spent 915,083 BAM (€467,874). The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) ran in both Republika Srpska (RS) and at the state level and spent a total of 1,253,448 BAM (€640,877), while the caps were set at 378,493 BAM (€193,520) for the RS level and 1,006,628 BAM (€514,681) for the state level.

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A. HUSKIĆ

Historical Overview of Campaigns The 1990 election campaign was nothing short of stunning given the fact that it represented the first such exercise in Bosnia’s history. Campaigns consisted of a relatively orthodox mixture of posters, banners, and rallies as well as television appearances and advertisements. At that time in Bosnia, media space was rather narrow, and, as mentioned above, an attempt was made to make access to public media relatively egalitarian. Despite being accused of bias by reformed Communists, the available data indicates that RTV SA at the time paid attention to being equal and balanced in its approach (Arnautović 1996). Most major parties used publications as a means to attract votes and communicate their ideologic programmatic position. The Party of Democratic Action (SDA) published a previously banned book Islamic Declaration by Alija Izetbegović, which was distributed alongside a political platform written by forty Muslim intellectuals, the Alliance of Communists and the Social Democratic Party (SKBiH-SDP) published a romanticised biography Nijaz izbliza by journalist Senad Avdić about the leader of SKBiH-SDP, while other parties primarily printed their platforms. Posters, audio, and video tapes also figured prominently, and the youthful Alliance of Socialist Youth—Democratic Alliance (SSO-DS), which would later become the Liberal Democratic Party, used a whole array of promotion materials, including pens, badges, balloons, raincoats, eco-bags (paper bags), and even a condom (Arnautović 1996, 91–92). Posters were hardly of any aesthetic value, as parties rightly assessed that the campaign revolved around identity issues rather than visual presentations. Slogans, meanwhile, served to communicate major positions but were adapted to the new political and social circumstances (Arnautović 1996). Reformed establishment parties communicated values of continuity, unity, and togetherness while trying to distance themselves from wording characteristic of the communist era. Ethnic nationalist parties praised democratic values and freedom of expression for their subdued identity groups as their key messages. The five-year interruption due to war brought no fundamental changes to the campaign strategies used in the 1996 elections. The first post-war elections were organised under rather difficult conditions and were neither free nor fair. An atmosphere of fear and mistrust made the victory of ethnic parties certain, so their messages were of unity aimed exclusively at their respective ethnic groups. As the largest Bosniak party, SDA empha-

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sised the return of refugees and displaced persons under the banner ‘We’re going home’ while their slogan, ‘We are supported by East and West alike’, served to reiterate a pro-Western Bosniak orientation along with the support they enjoyed in the larger Muslim community. The importance of religion and the ethnoterritorial character of their politics was visible in their slogan ‘In our own faith, in (our) own land’. The main Serb Democratic Party (SDS), a nationalist party, added ‘of Serb states’ to their acronym on campaign posters, which reinforced the pan-Serb/ethnoterritorial aspect of their political platform, while their slogan, ‘Water is cleanest at the source’, served to underline the originality of ur-nationalists. The Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) used their pre-war slogan ‘It is (well) known’, which had already become their trademark. They also used the slogan ‘Peace is our choice’, which communicates the message that the Dayton peace deal was their choice rather than the only choice they had. Opposition to ethnonationalists was rather weak and unconsolidated in these elections. The methods employed in 1996 did not vary much from 1990. Ethnonational parties opted for big rallies, which served as a crucial show of strength after the war, with the usual display of folklore, including flags, hats, uniforms (quite usual during the immediate post-war period), and the frequent invocation of war suffering at the hands of others. Throughout the whole period from 1996 to 2002, the campaign methods would remain relatively orthodox, consisting mainly of large rallies and gatherings with musical guests, a splash of television and radio ads, and numerous poster and billboards. Print media, which proliferated in number after the war, rarely if ever provided balanced and unbiased reporting. Additionally, ethnicity remained the dominant issue and ethnic homogenisation key element of campaigning. At this stage, it had become clear that election frequency resulted in a situation where campaigns had become a permanent feature of the Bosnian political landscape. Heavy-­ handed international engagement only added to the complexity of relations. By intervening in domestic affairs, internationals unwillingly acted as an inhibitor to the development of a much-needed culture of consensus. From 1996 to 2006, the international presence kept the most radical political elements among in check and pacified the political scene. As the international grip gradually loosened, the political situation worsened. After 2006, when the international presence underwent a fundamental redress, with the United States almost completely out of the picture and Europeans taking over, Bosnia entered a period of general stagnation,

206 

A. HUSKIĆ

democratic regression, and almost permanent political crisis. This period is also marked by serious deterioration of political rhetoric, an increase in the incidence of hate speech, and growing ethnic chauvinism. The issue of constitutional reform became the main political issue when the Europeans took on a leading role in BiH.  Domestic political elites were tasked with reaching a consensus on this issue by themselves, meaning that they would assume ownership of the political process, seen as the ultimate test of maturity among the domestic political elites but also a convenient exit strategy for the internationals. The dominance of the constitutional reform debate had side-effects that included ideological diffusion and the ethnic homogenisation of political parties. Starting in 1996, major ethnonationalists were continually opposed by progressive and anti-­ nationalist parties, and this binary political system allowed for relatively easy identification with one or the other of the groups. As potential for ethnic mobilisation and homogenisation began to subside with the temporal distance from the war increasing, government underperformance became a major political issue. Gross incompetence, nepotism, and corruption signified the rule of ethnopolitical parties, and the opposition started gaining ground. Major opposition in the FBiH and in RS was social-democratic—the SDP and the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), respectively. As the debate on constitutional reform intensified in 2006, SNSD gradually overtook the ethnonationalist SDS from the right and began its ascent to the ethnic throne in RS. The debate on constitutional reform was in essence a debate on the raison d’être of Bosnia and the political return to the 1990s was inevitable. In 2010, SDP became a senior partner in a coalition with the major Bosniak ethnonationalist party SDA and suffered as a result a major electoral defeat in 2014, whereas SNSD’s shift to the right enabled them to rise to absolute dominance in RS. The differences in outcomes probably stems from the difference in environments in which the two parties operated, as well as the different methods chosen. Constitutional reform thawed the frozen conflict and brought all the unresolved ethnic issues back to the forefront, reaffirming ethnic identities as major ones. The vertical (ethnonational) stratification completely annulled horizontal (socio-economic) cleavages while intra-ethnic competition contributed to worsening political dynamics and a vicious spiral of rising ethnic tensions. Ever since the end of the war (or even during the war), most major parties have managed to establish relatively good contacts with their ideological kin abroad. Establishing such links was facilitated and encouraged by

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the international community, based on the assumption that socialisation between Bosnian political parties and their ideological siblings abroad would have a moderating effect on their attitudes, lead to their professionalisation, and improve their ideological profile. Political parties in BiH were also recipients of numerous education programmes and consulting provided by various international organisations on the ground and their ideological groupings abroad. A significant amount of this consultancy aimed to increase the parties’ capacities to run campaigns while international partners also helped plan and organise election campaigns. This situation inevitably led to a degree of professionalisation in campaigning. Even though parties are generally reluctant to talk about their campaign organisation, available information indicates that larger and financially stronger parties outsource some aspects of their campaign. Bosnia is quite infamous for lacking any major public polls ahead of elections. Polls are generally and frequently done for internal purposes, either by political parties themselves or by international organisations working with political parties. Those which are ultimately leaked to the public have frequently proved to be relatively unreliable indicators of electoral trends.

Recent Trends Over the course of the last several election cycles, strong trends in the professionalisation of campaigning are clearly discernible. While parties, especially the big ones, remain true to the orthodox campaign methods, which include mass rallies, public stands, direct mail, and ads in printed and electronic media, they are also outsourcing parts of their campaigns to both national and international consulting agencies. For the most part, parties outsource visual design and media campaign and communication strategies, while strategic and campaign planning which is sensitive in nature is done in conjunction with either close international or regional partner parties and/or companies. Campaigns have become a lucrative niche in Bosnia where elections take place at regular intervals every two years. This enables continuous work within the campaign related industry, with one such agency reporting more than a one hundred per cent increase in workload during ­campaigns. This is a company which provides parties with creative services and visual identity but also arranges billboards and wall advertising on buildings. From what can be inferred from publicly available reports concerning campaign

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spending, printing promotion materials (flyers, posters, and billboards) accounts for around two-thirds of expenses (Al Jazeera 2016). While the real impact and importance of social media for electoral success in Bosnia remains hard to establish, most parties nevertheless use them to run their campaigns online. Regulations concerning paid advertisements before the beginning of an official campaign are considered deficient and are richly exploited by political parties (Zulejhić 2018). The CEC admitted that parties abuse what can rightly be described as a ‘grey area’ (NAP 2018). The same can also be said about advertisements on the messaging application Viber, which is the most widely used messaging application in Bosnia. The nature of an electoral campaign online, as sociologist Srd̵an Puhalo said to Al Jazeera, is very much personality-based and mainly serves to repeat political heavyweights’ messages from classic media outlets where they dominate to begin with (Dedić 2018). As already noted, the chronic absence of reliable polls has resulted in a situation where fake polls or methodologically deficient online polls appear. One such case during the 2018 general elections saw a television station publish the results of a poll by ‘a renowned London-based agency’, confirming the advantage of candidates they supported, which proved to be completely fabricated (Veličković 2014). Another interesting phenomenon combines both the rise of bot activities and party sock puppets in commentary sections of the most visited portals in Bosnia. The portals’ commercial interests are quantified in clicks and the number of unique visitors, much of which is generated by mostly unmoderated commentary sections below articles. These have become a breeding ground for defamation and hate-speech as well as less unethical but possibly more damaging framing of issues by party-financed trolls and bots. Use of freely available and non-curated space to misinform and spin the debate in a desired direction remains unregulated despite numerous public calls to editors and owners to counter this anomaly and assume responsibility for damaging rhetoric and the twisting of truth on their platforms. The final element in the analysis of current campaign trends is the already mentioned state capture and deeply entrenched partocracy. In earlier elections, politicians refrained from openly invoking this argument and addressing public servants, people employed in public companies, or budget beneficiaries, such as health and educations workers or pensioners. There was an implicit understanding that their parties had absolute and

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unchallenged control over public finances making people existentially dependent on them— essentially dependent on the political parties in power. The 2018 elections represented a deviation from this practice as candidates began openly invoking this argument and threatening employees of public companies with retribution should they choose to support the opposition. As a result, Transparency International (TI) in BiH filed charges against Milorad Dodik, leader and top candidate of SNSD, for ‘threats aimed at pensioners, health workers, employees of RiTE Gacko [Mine and Thermo Power Plant Gacko], and other segments of the population, with an intention to influence voters and gain support in the forthcoming elections’ (TI BiH 2018). In addition to this, TI lodged a complaint with the CEC for a violation of Article 7.3, Item 4, of the Election Law,4 which specifically addresses violations of this kind (TI BiH 2018).

Conclusion There is a discernible trend in electoral and campaign dynamics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Whereas the first few post-war elections were quite disorderly and prone to fraud and intimidation, the gradual strengthening of international engagement resulted in a reduction in tensions and a strengthening of a normative framework for the proper conduct of elections. Parties adapted (or were forced to adapt) to the changing environment, tuning their rhetoric and actions accordingly. Campaigns for the most part were quite orthodox, consisting of normal elements short of a dreaded door-to-door campaign. As international activism ceased, campaign rhetoric quickly deteriorated. While campaigning remains dominantly a battle of posters, billboards, and flyers, battle grounds have spread online (see Table 15.1). The unwillingness (or inability) of regulators to tackle the problem has led to the emergence of unabated hate speech and defamation campaigns, as well as the rise of sockpuppets and bots. The political grip over election bodies is strengthening while the level of state capture tendencies is increasing, further undermining the integrity 4  Article 7.3 (1) Candidates and supporters of political parties, lists of independent candidates, list of members of national minorities and coalitions, as well as independent candidates and their supporters, and election administration officials or those otherwise hired in the election administration are not allowed to: … promise any financial reward or other material gain with the purpose of gaining support of voters, or to threaten supporters of other political parties, coalitions, list of independent candidates or independent candidates.

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of the electoral process. The absence of an international corrective element and an underdeveloped political culture has resulted in increasingly radical rhetoric which also serves the purpose of diverting the public’s attention away from the obvious underperformance of the government and the worsening socio-economic situation. Since the European Union remains the only normative player in the country, and its presence and influence continue to wane, despite an apparent spike in interest in the region in 2018, negative trends are likely to continue. The political instability, along with ever more radical rhetoric, abuse of social networks, and smear campaigns are likely to increase and become a permanent feature of campaigns. Parties and candidates will be more likely to resort to the open blackmail of voters who are either part of an expansive state apparatus and/or are budget users. For the time being, there is no reason to assume that these negative trends can be reversed short of widespread social unrest, which has so far been curbed by strong fragmentation of the society and the absence of a strong and credible opposition.

Direct elections for BiH presidency (3 presidents) and Parliament (42 seats) on the state level, president of RS, National Assembly of RS, PA of FBiH, 10 cantonal assemblies Direct elections for BiH Organised by OSCE— presidency (3 presidents) Provisional Electoral and Parliament (42 seats) Commission on the state level, president of RS, National Assembly of RS, PA of FBiH, 10 cantonal assemblies

1996

1998

Dominance of nationalist Yes rhetoric coupled by anti-­ communist stance, glorification of freedom of expression, ethnic homogenisation Very early post-war elections, Yes organised by OSCE— Provisional Electoral Commission.

Direct election for Council of Citizens (130 seats) and Council of Municipalities (110 seats)

1990

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Focus mainly on

Basic characteristics of campaigns

Year of Electoral system Election

Table 15.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Bosnia and Herzegovina

No

Post-conflict ethnic Yes homogenisation

(continued)

Yes

n/a

No

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Post-conflict ethnic n/a homogenisation

Continuity vs. change. Reformed socialists vs. ethno-nationalists

Main topics of campaigns

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211

2006

2002

Yes

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Focus mainly on

First elections organized by Yes Central Election Commission of BiH. Waning international influence. Debate on constitutional reform. Election of Croat presidency candidate from multi-ethnic party.

First four-year term

Last two-year term and elections organised solely by OSCE - PEC

2000

Direct elections for BiH presidency BiH (3 presidents) and Parliament (42 seats) on the state level, president of RS, National Assembly of RS, PA of FBiH, 10 cantonal assemblies Direct elections for BiH presidency BiH (3 presidents) and Parliament (42 seats) on the state level, president of RS, National Assembly of RS, PA of FBiH, 10 cantonal assemblies, threshold of 3% Direct elections for BiH presidency (3 presidents) and Parliament (42 seats) on the state level, president of RS, National Assembly of RS, PA of FBiH, 10 cantonal assemblies, threshold of 3%

Basic characteristics of campaigns

Year of Electoral system Election

Table 15.1 (continued)

Constitutional reform

Growing opposition to ethnonationalists

Main topics of campaigns

Yes

Yes

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

212  A. HUSKIĆ

2018

2014

Deep inter-ethnic political crisis.

Deep inter-ethnic political crisis perpetuated by major etpolitical parties.

Debate on constitutional Yes reform. For the second time, Croat presidency candidate from multi-ethnic party is elected triggering deep political crisis.

Direct elections for BiH presidency BiH (3 presidents) and parliament (42 seats) on the state level, president of RS, National Assembly of RS, PA of FBiH, 10 cantonal assemblies, threshold of 3% Direct elections for BiH presidency BiH (3 presidents) and Parliament (42 seats) on the state level, president of RS, National Assembly of RS, PA of FBiH, 10 cantonal assemblies, threshold of 3% Direct elections for BiH presidency (3 presidents) and Parliament (42 seats) on the state level, president of RS, National Assembly of RS, PA of FBiH, 10 cantonal assemblies, threshold of 3%

2010

Yes

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Focus mainly on

Basic characteristics of campaigns

Year of Electoral system Election

Table 15.1 (continued)

Ethnic homogenisation, Croat question (legitimacy vs. legality), electoral law reform

Ethnic homogenisation, Croat question (legitimacy vs. legality), electoral law reform

Constitutional reform

Main topics of campaigns

Yes

Yes

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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213

Posters, leaflets, TV presentation, free ads, paid ads (PBS only) Billboards, posters, leaflets, TV debates and presentations, free ads, paid ads Billboards, posters, leaflets, TV debates and presentations, free ads, paid ads Billboards, posters, leaflets, TV debates and presentations, free ads, paid ads Billboards, posters, leaflets, TV debates and presentations, free ads, paid ads

1990

2002

2000

1998

1996

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of Election

Table 15.1 (continued)

Rallies, canvassing.

Rallies, canvassing.

Rallies, canvassing.

Rallies, canvassing.

Rallies

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

n/a

n/a

n/a

Did the parties use polling and research techniques?

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

Campaign spending limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

n/a

n/a

n/a

Yes

Free airtime Possible to on public buy airtime media on public or private media

(continued)

Notes

214  A. HUSKIĆ

Billboards, posters, Rallies, leaflets, TV debates and canvassing. presentations, free ads, paid ads

Billboards, posters, Rallies, leaflets, TV debates and canvassing. presentations, free ads, paid ads

2006

2010

Types of campaign activities

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of Election

Table 15.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Did the parties use polling and research techniques?

Yes

Yes

Free airtime Possible to on public buy airtime media on public or private media

At the level of Yes cantons set at BAM 0.20 (~€0,10) per registered voter, for all other levels stretching from municipal to the BiH presidency and Parliament BAM 0.30 (€0,15) At the level of Yes cantons set at BAM 0.20 (~€0,10) per registered voter, for all other levels stretching from municipal to the BiH presidency and Parliament BAM 0.30 (€0,15)

Campaign spending limits

(continued)

Notes

15  BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 

215

Billboards, posters, Rallies, leaflets, TV debates and canvassing. presentations, free ads, paid ads

Billboards, posters, Rallies, leaflets, TV debates and canvassing. presentations, free ads, paid ads

2014

2018

Types of campaign activities

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of Election

Table 15.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Did the parties use polling and research techniques?

Yes

Yes

Free airtime Possible to on public buy airtime media on public or private media

At the level of Yes cantons set at BAM 0.20 (~€0,10) per registered voter, for all other levels stretching from municipal to the BiH presidency and Parliament BAM 0.30 (€0,15) At the level of Yes cantons set at BAM 0.20 (~€0,10) per registered voter, for all other levels stretching from municipal to the BiH presidency and Parliament BAM 0.30 (€0,15)

Campaign spending limits

Notes

216  A. HUSKIĆ

15  BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 

217

References Al Jazeera. 2016. BiH vodi najskuplji vid izborne kampanje. Al Jazeera, September 17.  http://balkans.aljazeera.net/vijesti/bih-vodi-najskuplji-vid-izbornekampanje. Andjelic, Neven. 2003. Bosnia-Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy. London: Routledge. Arnautović, Suad. 1996. Izbori u Bosni i Hercegovini ’90: Analiza izbronog procesa. Sarajevo: Promocult. Belloni, Roberto. 2004. Peacebuilding and Consociational Electoral Engineering in Bosnia and Herzegovina. International Peacekeeping 11 (2): 334–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/1353331042000237300. Dedić, Midhat. 2018. Amerikanizacija bh. izbora: Kampanja nikad nije ni prestala. Al Jazeera, September 9. http://balkans.aljazeera.net/vijesti/amerikanizacijabh-izbora-kampanja-nikad-nije-ni-prestala. Hulsey, John. 2015. Electoral Accountability in Bosnia and Herzegovina Under the Dayton Framework Agreement. International Peacekeeping 22 (5): 511– 525. https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2015.1100081. International Crisis Group. 1996. Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. International Crisis Group, September 22. https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/ balkans/bosnia-and-herzegovina/elections-bosnia-and-herzegovina. Malcolm, Noel. 1996. Observation on the Bosnian Elections. The Bosnian Institute. http://www.bosnia.org.uk/bosrep/report_format.cfm?articleid=18 73&reportid=116#. Accessed 25 Nov 2018. Manning, Carrie. 2004. Elections and Political Change in Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Democratization 11 (2): 60–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/135 10340412331294212. ———. 2008. The Making of Democrats: Elections and Party Development in Postwar Bosnia, El Salvador, and Mozambique. London: Palgrave Macmillan. NAP. 2018. CIK nema način da kazni stranke zbog društvenih mreža i online medija! Patria, 31 August. http://www.nap.ba/new/vijest.php?id=47887. Accessed Dec 2018. TI BiH. 2018. Press Release: TI BiH Filed Criminal Charges Against Milorad Dodik. Banja Luka: Transparency International BiH. United Nations. 1995. The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and  Herzegovina.  https://www.securitycouncilrepor t.org/atf/cf/% 7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/BOSNIA%20 S1995%20999.PDF. Accessed 20 June, 2019. Veličković, Nenad. 2014. Konsaltika, naša dika. Mediacentar_online, September 8. http://www.media.ba/bs/mediametar/konsaltika-nasa-dika. Zulejhić, Emir. 2018. Stranke i kandidati na Facebooku: ko je počeo kampanju prije njenog zvaničnog početka? Raskrikavanje.ba, September 7. https:// raskrinkavanje.ba/analiza/stranke-i-kandidati-na-facebooku-ko-je-poceokampanju-prije-njenog-zvanicnog-pocetka.

CHAPTER 16

Bulgaria Ivanka Mavrodieva

Country Overview Todor Zhivkov was removed from the post of Secretary General of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) on 10 November 1989 at the plenum of the Central Committee of the BCP. At the end of 1989 and the beginning of 1990, Bulgarian citizens took part in ecological and political protests. In the early 1990s, the functioning of state institutions ceased. On 15 January 1990, the National Assembly voted to repeal Art. 1 of the Constitution, then in force and which had established the leading role of the BCP. During the National Round Table (3 January to 15 May 1990) the ruling Communist Party and the opposition reached an agreement on the transition from socialism to democracy (National Round Table 1990). One of its aspects included conducting parliamentary elections for a Grand National Assembly. From 1990 to 1997, Bulgaria underwent several changes, and the economy collapsed. Inflation rose to hyperinflation—in November 1996, an American dollar could be exchanged for 2000 Bulgarian levs increasing I. Mavrodieva (*) Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_16

219

220 

I. MAVRODIEVA

to 3000 levs by January 1997. Since then, the economy has stabilised and foreign investment has grown, but the standard of living has remained at an unsatisfactory level. The migration of Bulgarians to Western Europe and the United States has continued to grow; currently, over one million Bulgarians work, live, and study abroad. Bulgaria became a full member of the European Union in 2007; however, the idea of EU membership dates back to 1990. The notion of NATO membership was also born in 1990 and Bulgaria has been a member since 2004. After 1990, the party system began to develop. According to Georgi Karasimeonov, from 1990 to 2001, there were reasons to talk about the formation and evolution of the first party system, and he offers the conceptual criteria of liberal democracy against reformed socialism (Karasimeonov 2016, 79). Another author Dobrin Kanev also defines the criteria of communism and anti-communism (Kanev 2014, 226–267) in connection with the transformation. Karasimeonov accepts that the 2001 parliamentary elections led to a change in the party system, the reasons for this being the exhaustion of the old system of cleavages, the inclusion of the charismatic personality of Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the country’s politics and the registration of the National Movement Simeon II in 2001, the orientation of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) towards the European Union and NATO, and others (Karasimeonov 2016, 80–81). In 2005, the political party Attack—a nationalist organisation— emerged, and its appearance changed the party system in Bulgaria. In the same year, Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) was promoted to the political stage. Consequently, the changes from 1989 to 2017 in Bulgaria take place in a specific manner. Their features are due to the way in which the transition from socialism to democracy has taken place. Other factors determining these features are the building of the party system, the establishment of state institutions, civil society processes, transformations in the media market, etc.

Legal Framework According to Art. 1, (1) of the Constitution (1991), ‘Bulgaria shall be a republic with a parliamentary form of government’. According to Art. 84, (6) the National Assembly shall ‘elect and remove the Prime Minister and

16 BULGARIA 

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the members of the Council of Ministers; [and] effect changes in the ­government on a motion from the Prime Minister’ (Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, prom. SG 56/13 July 1991). Upon the resignation of the government, the president appoints a prime minister and sets early parliamentary elections according to the constitution. The president schedules the elections by decree, which is published in the State Gazette. The election system in the Republic of Bulgaria has been changing. Elections to the Grand National Assembly (1990) were held in a mixed system (majority and proportional), and the initiative was given during the National Round Table. In 2001, the Bulgarian parliament adopted a special law on the election of MPs. Since 2009, the election system has been mixed: majority and proportional; 240 are MPs, the majority system elects 31 and the proportional elects 209. The election campaign is governed by the Law on Election of People’s Representatives and the Political Parties Act (LEPRPPA), adopted in April 2001 by the thirty-ninth National Assembly. The rules for media broadcasts are described in the law. The Election Code regulates the coverage of the election campaign, providing access limits to mass media. According to this law, three debates with a total duration of 180 minutes are to be broadcast on the Bulgarian National Television and the Bulgarian National Radio. According to the law, no less than half of this time should be given to the parliamentary parties of the current parliament, and they receive a total of ninety minutes over the three television debates. The extra-­ parliamentary parties receive opportunities to take part in media debates as well but, due to their higher number, they have less time per party. Summarising, we can say that the negative tradition, as in previous elections, continues to be divided into two groups, and there is an unequal treatment of candidates with regard to media coverage during parliamentary elections. LEPRPPA introduces a special system of electoral organisation. This system includes the Central Election Commission (CEC), thirty-one district election commissions, and constituency election commissions. The president appoints the CEC members after consultation with the parties represented in the parliament. The CEC organises and controls the electoral process at the national level. In 2014, the Election Code was adopted and it provides clearer election regulation in comparison to LEPRPPA (2001). An amendment to the code has been made since, which is consistent with the recommendations of the OSCE. The code prohibits the publishing and broadcasting

222 

I. MAVRODIEVA

of anonymous materials and posters which endanger the lives and health of citizens or private, municipal, and state property. It also makes illegal the violation of good morals and the honour and good name of candidates. Election campaigns, which in Bulgaria are referred to as pre-election campaigns, last for one month. Parliamentary elections are held in one round. The day prior to the elections, agitation is prohibited. Electoral participation has decreased over the last three decades; it was 93 per cent in 1990 and 54.7 per cent in 2017. The electorate is disappointed with politicians and MPs. The rating of the Bulgarian parliament is low, with confidence in the Bulgarian parliament dropping to 6 per cent over the past decade.

Historical Overview of Campaigns In 1990, during the elections to the Grand National Assembly, interest was focused on public media—Bulgarian National Television (BNT) and Bulgarian National Radio (BNR). According to the decisions of the National Round Table (1990), the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), and the Bulgarian Agrarian People’s Union (BAU) had access to the television and radio broadcasters. Speeches were delivered and presented as video clips on BNT and the station broadcast televised election debates, which lasted up to forty-five minutes. Other coalitions had a limited time of ten minutes to present their programmes. During the first democratic elections for the National Assembly (1991), BNT was mostly used to identify MP candidates and to legitimise parties or politicians on a national level. The shorter time for television participation failed to contribute to the equal representation of most MP candidates, and, at the same time, these candidates did not have any rhetorical or media experience; combined, these factors did not produce the desired impact on voters. The Constitution (1991) regulates freedom of speech and the press. Since 1991, the state monopoly on broadcasting has disappeared. Darik Radio, a private electronic media provider, started in 1993, and, until 2017, continued to be a preferred communication channel along with BNR in the election campaigns of Bulgarian MPs. The first private television broadcaster was Nova TV, which started in 1994. At that time, local and cable television channels also started operations, and they provided access to election propaganda for a fee.

16 BULGARIA 

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Candidates still did not have enough communicative and media experience to perform their main appeals on the media audience impressively or to persuade voters—most speakers delivered verbose and boring speeches. From 1990 to 2001, party newspapers were the platforms for the election statements of MPs: “Word” (Duma), Democracy (Demokratsiya), “Earth” (Zemya), “Agricultural Flag” (Zemedelsko zname), “Free People” (Svoboden Narod), People’s Voice (Naroden Glas), Democratic Review (Democraticheski pregled), and others. For the purposes of the campaign, private media were also used, including the newspapers Debate (Debati), Nowdays (Sega), 24 hours (24 casa), Labor (Trud), Telegraph (Telegraf), and others. Posters, speeches, news, and articles were published in these print media; consequently, the political marketing and political advertising were also done via printed publication. We can conclude then that from 1990 to 2001, during the election campaigns, the MP candidates combined party and private print media with public and private electronic media. Since 2001, the election campaign has continued the tradition of predominantly using BNT. The candidates can use different forms: introductory and final addresses, debates, and video spots, as well as daily reportage. Private television broadcasters also organise debates, and they provide time for video spots from MPs and parties. A positive fact is the concluded agreement with BNT, as a result of regulation in the Election Code. The broadcast of political advertising through video clips has increased. Video spots and advertisements are now broadcast on television, meaning that election rhetoric is combined with political advertising, media coverage and reportage. There were twenty-two parties and coalitions and thirteen independent candidates registered for participation in the 2005 election. In 2009, twenty-one parties, coalitions, and independent candidates participated in the elections, forty-six in 2013, and twenty-one in 2017. The broadcast television debates did not contribute to clarifying the merits of the candidates; the participants were either aggressive or banal and boring, and interest in them and disappointment with the political class has led to a withdrawal from watching these debates. Since 2001, the media market has been changing and private television broadcasters such as Nova TV (new), bTV, 7 Dni, Kanal 3, and the show Attack on Scat Television have begun to play a key role during the MP campaigns. Bulgarian media broadcasts speeches, debates, news, reports, as well as political spots. The first group of candidates for MP prefer to

224 

I. MAVRODIEVA

take part in television magazine broadcasts, the so-called morning blocks. The other group with political, rhetorical, and media experience as well as a background in discussions take part in broadcasts of Panorama and Referendum on BNT.  Interest in using party newspapers has gradually decreased. Consequently, print and electronic media integrate political marketing and advertising with election rhetoric and media appearances. An interesting moment related to the broadcasting of video spots began in 2005 because these spots explained the conditions for voting. This is important in view of the legislative changes as well as of the fact that in 2005, for the first time, Bulgarian citizens voted using an integrated ballot and transparent boxes in the election districts. The observers and supporters of MP candidates now have the right to observe the election process. After 2001, and especially from 2005 to 2010, Bulgarian politicians began to use blogs in general and particularly during the election campaigns. Georgi Kadiev, Miroslav Sevlievski, Boris Tsekov, Feliz Husmenova, among others are active political bloggers. Interest in political blogging after 2010 has gradually declined and candidates for MP now prefer social media such as Facebook and YouTube. After 2014, they started to use Instagram. Twitter is not a preferred social network among MP candidates. Virtual forums have not developed successfully and sustainably as part of the election campaigns. After 2013, we can talk about a convergent media environment, life broadcasting, a change in the media ecosystem, and the manner of organising election campaigns. Political presentations, especially in 2017, have started to become part of election campaigns, introducing the candidates but not the programmes of the parties. The parliamentary elections of 1990, 1991, and 1994 were held in a context of political polarisation and extreme opposition between two major political configurations and parties—the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF). The UDF defended Bulgaria’s membership in the European Union and NATO, while the BSP supported an orientation towards Russia or a more moderate balance of relations between the European Union and Russia. The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) played a balancing role, and it did not take a strong position. In 1990, the UDF used the slogans ‘45 years is enough’, ‘Time is ours’, ‘Tomorrow starts today’, as well as the blue colour and the symbol of a lion. The verbal message ‘45 years is enough’ contains an extreme

16 BULGARIA 

225

opposition between left and right, socialism and democracy. On a visual level, this message was combined with a map of the concentration camps during socialism, with a barbed wire symbol not offering to overcome the Bulgarians’ sense of fear. The UDF wanted punishments (‘If we prefer peace, then the BSP must go to Siberia!’). The BSP used the rose and the red colour as symbols, and the messages were social. During the election campaign in 1994, the UDF used the abstract message ‘Victory, Bulgaria!’ The BSP used the slogan ‘Bulgaria for all’. It is obvious that the parties aimed to show engagement with a national cause. In 1997, the UDF aimed to show the rule of the state and legislation, equality before the law and observance of laws while promising to guarantee minority rights as well as search for a rapprochement with voters in the slogan ‘With your support, the UDF will beat lawlessness’. The elections in 2001 ran relatively calmly. During the previous four years, the national currency stabilised, progress was made in the economic sphere and the process of privatising enterprises, and private land ownership was restored. Negotiations about Bulgaria’s memberships in the European Union and NATO were accelerating. The BSP changed the course of its foreign policy orientation and supported EU membership. At the same time, there were changes in the balance between the left and right political orientation. Bulgarian citizens’ disappointment was growing, and it created conditions for a new person in the political system (Simeon Sax-Coburg-Gotha) and a new party, the National Movement of Simeon the Second (NMSS), which won 1,952,513 votes or 42.74 per cent of the vote. The main slogan was ‘Honesty in everything’. In 2001, the Georgyovden and the Internal Macedonian-Odrin Revolutionary Organisation (IMORO) Coalition conducted a campaign, part of which included the following slogans addressed to political opponents focusing on responsibility and punishment: ‘Let’s kick their chair’, “Let’s ask for their bill”. The nationalist party Attack took part in an election campaign for the first time in 2005. The party grew out of the television show Attack on the private television broadcaster Skat TV and gradually started to play a role in the National Assembly, with four mandates from 2005 to 2017. In 2005, the Attack candidates sent aggressive appeals and populist messages to stop membership in NATO and the European Union; the election rhetoric was extreme. The 2009 election campaign included negative techniques of political marketing, PR, advertising, and rhetoric. Ahmed Dogan, the leader of the

226 

I. MAVRODIEVA

MRF, while delivering a speech during a meeting of their hard and ­convinced followers, said aggressively: ‘The power is concentrated in me, not in your MP. I distribute the portions.’ This statement activated election activity and voters, and as a result, the same Bulgarians supported other parties. The Bulgarian Socialist Party also broadcast negative video spots and, as a result most Bulgarian citizens do not vote for the BSP. In 2013, a gross violation of the rules was committed on the day of reflection1; 350,000 ballots were printed in the Multiprint printing company outside the state’s control. The information was reported by the journalist Nikolay Barekov on TV7, causing tension among voters. The scandal affected electoral activity because Bulgarian citizens were disappointed. The election campaign of 2013 was conducted under tense circumstances after Bulgarian citizens protested against the state-run monopolies. The political party Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) disseminated an amorphous sounding message: ‘We have will’. Most political parties, however, preferred patriotic appeals, including with Bulgaria in their slogans—the BSP (‘Let’s return Bulgaria to the people)’, the political party ‘Leader’ (‘Revive Bulgaria’), the MRF (‘With MRF for a free and secure Bulgaria’). The party Order, Law and Justice had as their main slogan ‘Always against corruption’. The ideological identification of the UDF was not clear or effective. The aim was to have the party recognised again under new political configurations through nostalgia. The main appeal was ‘We are blue again!’ Consequently, the 2013 election campaign included heterogeneous appeals and a media mix. In 2014, the Reformist Bloc, which united right-wing parties, broadcast the main slogan ‘Everything is in your hands’ as an appeal to activate the Bulgarian electorate and voters. Bulgaria Without Censorship (BBC) with its coalition partners broadcast the message ‘Bulgaria deserves more’. Bulgaria was included in the slogan but the message sounded vague and indefinite. The Patriotic Front followed the same model, and the main appeal was ‘Bulgaria above all!’ Movement 21, a left-wing party, broadcast the slogan ‘Best ideas for the good of Bulgaria’, with MPs declaring their willingness to work for the good of the state. Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (ABV), a left-wing party as well, incorporated the word ‘state’ in its slogans ‘For a strong state, a successful 1  A day of reflection is the last day before the election, usually a Saturday. It is forbidden for the parties disseminate propaganda, and the candidates try to avoid sending direct appeals and messages to Bulgarian voters via traditional and online media as well as social networks.

16 BULGARIA 

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nation, and a dignified life!’ BBC was, for its part, focused on the responsibility of the state: ‘The state cares for people.’ Attack propagated in its posters, video spots, party website, and social networks the slogans ‘Our patience is exhausted! Attack. Victory!’ and ‘Attack—the last stronghold of the people’. At the same time, the leader, Volen Siderov, was presented as a strategist in the verbal message ‘Plan Siderov’. The second version included the pathetic message ‘God is with us!’ The party Vox Populi addressed Bulgarian citizens with the slogan ‘Difficult choice. Live freely!’, the aim of which was to activate the responsibility of Bulgarian citizens. The BSP ran a campaign in 2017 which addressed left-oriented Bulgarian citizens, and the candidates promised to reduce unemployment and increase salaries and pensions. GERB combined direct meetings with voters and broadcasted those meetings via Kanal 3; the aim was to reach more Bulgarians by promising security and jobs for young Bulgarians. The nationalistic-oriented parties were in coalition, and they were betting on patriotic messages including references to Great Bulgaria; the appeals of nationalistic parties and candidates for MP also included populist messages. Summarising, we can say that election participants campaigning to become MPs prefer to combine terms with ideological words. Bulgaria, state, stability/stable, security, freedom/freely, people, life, standards, reforms, choice, and so on are the words incorporated in the slogans. Moreover, we can conclude that the election campaigns for the National Assembly since 1990 have included the use of printed and electronic media. After 2001, the parties started gradually publishing in online media and on blogs and social media beginning in 2003. The diversity and heterogeneity of slogans on the verbal and visual levels were typical features of the parliamentary elections from 1990 to 2017 in Bulgaria.

Recent Trends The first trend is observed on the level of parliamentary representativeness after election campaigns. The Coalition for Bulgaria, a left-wing alliance led by the BSP, or the BSP itself have had MPs permanently since 1990 and have disposed itself to their hard electorate. MRF as an ethnic party has received the support of the Turkish minority in all given mandates of the Bulgarian parliament since 1990.

228 

I. MAVRODIEVA

The UDF has also had MPs in the Bulgarian parliament; it won the election in 1997 and it formed its own government until 2001, the prime minister was Ivan Kostov. After 2001, the UDF was transformed and separated. Now part of the Blue Coalition, it currently does not play a major role in Bulgaria’s political party system, and it does not have sustained representation in the National Assembly. The Reformist Block, which is a democratic and conservative coalition, had MPs and its own ministers in the Second Borisov Government (2014–2016); since 2017, however, it has not had MPs—the first time since democratic changes began in 1990. The political party GERB has had MPs in the Bulgarian parliament since 2009. Three governments under Prime Minister Boiko Borisov were voted into the National Assembly. Newly established parties, such as Order, Legality, Justice; Alternative for Bulgarian Revival; and Bulgaria Without Censure, have taken part in parliamentary elections, but they have had a short life in the political system, only ever receiving one mandate in the National Assembly. Some nationalist parties have had representation in the Bulgarian parliament: Attack since 2005, the IMORO since 2013; and the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria since 2014. The Bulgarian National-­ Patriotic Party and the Nationalist Party of Bulgaria have not won parliamentary elections in Bulgaria and they do not have MPs in the National Assembly. Three eco/green parties—the Green Party, the Party of Greens, and the Greens/Green Movement—have taken part independently or in small coalitions in the election campaigns since 2000; they have not been represented in the Bulgarian parliament. The second observed trend is on the level of communication channels, events, and tools during the election campaigns for MPs in the Bulgarian parliament. In campaigns since 2001, the political parties have evaluated positively the opportunities of online communication; they have combined new communication channels with electronic and print media. Posters and billboards have been used but, on the quantitative level, such use has gradually declined. Multiple rallies were accepted as ineffective political events during the election campaigns, and the role of concerts as tools to attract the electorate’s attention has reduced too. The quality of spots during the election campaigns has improved. Virtual forums operate at the level of small groups, but they are fluid and do not represent permanent

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229

communities. The visual elements in the messages have increased and been ­combined with verbal elements. The role of rhetorical speeches and political statements has been reduced because the parties no longer organise meetings with the participation of thousands of citizens. Political presentations have become a part of election campaigns, and politicians have started delivering shorter speeches and statements. The MP candidates prefer to announce their appeals during television and radio broadcasts. Complete opposition and negativism are permanent features of election campaigns for the National Assembly, but the slogans do not have the same sharp form as they did at the beginning of the transition from socialism to democracy and the two decades which followed it. Trolls and the language of hatred decreased in 2017. Twitter and Instagram are not preferred by MP candidates; instead they favour the use of Facebook and YouTube while political blogs remain in the background. The process for Bulgarians abroad, at the electoral district level, is not well organized. The CEC has a lot of experience in organising and holding parliamentary elections, but observers, the media, and citizens have found that parliamentary elections are not well organised at the regional and local levels. The CEC has been trying to reduce voter list errors, and it is now obligatory to write the sentence ‘Selling and buying votes is a crime’ on posters and television spots. The same attempts and good practices to follow basic ethical norms can be observed during parliamentary election campaigns.

Conclusion In conclusion, it is reasonable to say that over the past three decades parliamentary elections have been regulated by laws adapted to the new circumstances and a modern way of organising the electoral process which follow rules of democracy, transparency, strict organisation, access to the election results, and voting. Electronic, online, and social media play a key role in election campaigns, but the effective persuasion of Bulgarian citizens has not yet been established. Speeches are prepared beforehand with only some being delivered spontaneously by party leaders and candidates for MP. Speeches are a regular and standard part of the campaigns, and orators present proposals on the basis of the party’s election platforms and programmes. Unfortunately, media debates during the election campaigns are not carried out; the participants in television debates prefer well-­known, traditional ways to announce their ideas and to support them with arguments.

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I. MAVRODIEVA

Electronic media, political blogs, and social media—Facebook in particular—perform the function of disseminating election messages. The candidates for MP prefer verbosity, ornateness, abstract words, and clichés. Election campaigns have started to include social media and virtual forums; they have been evaluated as virtual tribunes for personal speaking but not as a virtual agora including discussions (see Table  16.1). The role of social media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) will likely increase during the next election campaign. Speeches, political presentations, press conferences, and debates will be broadcast online using a live stream model. Visual elements, spots, multimodal presentation, and multimodality will combine with traditional tools. The assumption is that most Bulgarian citizens will continue to be more critical and will demand reliable and timely information about the candidates, their own election rights, laws and regulations, and the parliamentary election process with its organisation and implementation from a legal perspective. Voters in the Republic of Bulgaria now require more access to information about candidates, they no longer trust sociological polls, and they prefer to be active and empowered civil society actors.

mixed

majority

1990

1991

majority

2001

2005

majority

1997

1994

Electoral system

Year of election

1997—right-oriented policy, disputes over privatisation, 2001—liberal ideas and European values dominate, 2005—Bulgarian citizens voted using an integrated ballot.

Ideological polarisation, verbal aggression, banal political rhetoric, boring messages, common promises of prosperity, reforms and change in the pattern of governance and reorientation of foreign policy.

Basic campaign characteristics

Table 16.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Bulgaria

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Democracy and civil society, political reforms. Change of political and party system, reforms. Economic crisis, high prices, private sector, standards of living, labour market, unemployment, changes in agriculture, closure of factories. Socio-economic cleavage, hyperinflation Stabilisation, reorientation of a foreign policy towards the EU and NATO Nationalistic cleavage, membership in the EU and NATO, human rights.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

16 BULGARIA 

231

Social and patriotic appeals, political confrontation.

No

mixed

Yes

Yes

2017

Mixed

2013

2009 campaign included negative techniques, 2013 campaign held despite a tense situation (protests), 2014 campaign included heterogeneous appeals.

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Yes

mixed

2009

Basic campaign characteristics

2014

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 16.1 (continued)

New cleavage—CEDB, liberal and conservative ideas, model of government. After the protests of Bulgarian citizens against monopoles and high prices. New political configurations, patriotism, nationalism, migration. Security, standards of living, ecology.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

232  I. MAVRODIEVA

2005

2001

1997

1994

1991

Leaflets, party newspapers, TV and radio addresses and debates. TV and radio debates, contact with voters, posters. Public addresses, posters, party newspapers. Billboards, public electronic media, party newspapers. Billboards, public TV, spots, personal political blogs.

1990

No

Use of polling and research techniques?

Rallies, concerts, direct contact with voters. Door-to-door canvasing, direct contact with voters, concerts. Billboards, public TV, Debates and public spots, personal and addresses party blogs, social broadcasted on TV, media (Facebook). political TV advertising. Sociological agencies and think tanks

Sociological agencies

Yes

Rallies, concerts, No discussions between candidates. Rallies, concerts, Yes debates, speeches.

Rallies, concerts, discussions.

Type of communication Types of campaign (ads and media) activities

Year of election

Table 16.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Campaign spending limits

Free and paid time.

Free and paid time. Free and paid time.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Free airtime on public media

Yes. Addresses, debates, spots. Yes. Addresses, debates, spots.

No

No

No

No

Possibility to buy airtime

(continued)

New party Attack and coalitions.

Change of two party system— NMSS

Change of political model.

Economic reforms.

Ideological polarisation.

First free election.

Notes

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Combination of offline and online channels, personal presentation, spots.

Private and public media, social media (Facebook and YouTube) Private and public media, online and social media (Facebook).

2013

2014

2017

Billboards, posters, spots, political presentations.

2009

Direct interaction with voters, TV, social media.

A combination of political PR activities.

Debates and public addresses broadcasted on TV, negative political PR approach. Public addresses, political polemics, virtual forums, trolling.

Type of communication Types of campaign (ads and media) activities

Year of election

Table 16.1 (continued)

Sociological agencies

Sociological agencies, associations.

Sociological agencies, foundations, associations.

Use of polling and research techniques?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Campaign spending limits

Free and paid time.

Free and paid time.

Free and paid time.

Free and paid time.

Free airtime on public media

Yes. Addresses, debates, spots, interviews. Yes. Addresses, spots, interviews. Yes. Spots, interviews.

Yes. debates, spots, TV interviews.

Possibility to buy airtime

Reduced citizen activism.

Paid political trolls.

Disappointment in parties and institutions.

An attempt to falsify election ballots.

Notes

234  I. MAVRODIEVA

16 BULGARIA 

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References Central Election Committee. https://www.cik.bg/. Accessed 20 June 2019. Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, prom. SG 56/13 July 1991, amend. SG 85/26 Sept. 2003, SG 18/25 Feb. 2005, SG 27/31 March 2006, Sg 78/26 Sept. 2006 – Constitutional Court, Judgment no.7/2006, SG 12/6 Feb. 2007. Kanev, Dobrin. 2014. Parties and the Party System and the Quality of Democracy. In The Quality of Democracy in Bulgaria, ed. Dobrin Kanev and Antoni Todorov, 225–293. Sofia: East-West Publishing House. Election Code of Bulgaria, adopted on 5 March 2014. https://www.lex.bg/en/ laws/ldoc/2135715515. Accessed 20 June 2019. European Commision for democracy through law (Venice Commission), Strasbourg, 18 June 2014 Opinion No. 750/2013 CDL-REF(2014)025. https://www. venice.coe.int/webfor ms/documents/default.aspx?pdf file=CDLREF(2014)025-e. Accessed 20 June 2019. Karasimeonov, Georgi. 2016. Transformations in the Bulgarian Political System in Bulgaria. Is a Third Party System Formed? In Politics and Democracy, 30 Years of Bulgarian Political Science (1986–2016), ed. A. Tomov, 77–88. Sofia: “St. Kliment Ohridski” Publishing House. National Round Table. 1990. Documents Agreement on the Election Campaign on Radio and Television. http://www.omda.bg/public/bulg/k_masa/dokumenti_ round_table/agreement_election_campaign.htm. Accessed 11 Nov 2018.

CHAPTER 17

Croatia Marijana Grbeša and Berto Šalaj

Country Overview Croatia is a parliamentary democracy with a unicameral parliament whose 151 representatives are elected through a proportional electoral system in ten multi-member electoral constituencies every four years. Ethnic minorities and representatives of the Croatian diaspora are elected in two additional constituencies which have acquired special status. Preferential voting has been enabled in parliamentary elections since 2015. Ever since its independence, Croatia has been interchangeably governed by two major parties: the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP). However, over the last few years their supremacy has been challenged by a number of populist options, the centrist populist, anti-establishment Bridge of Independent Lists (MOST) and Human Shield (Živi zid), a social populist party with elements of right-wing populism (e.g. anti-immigrant rhetoric), being the most prominent (Grbeša and Šalaj 2018a; Mustapić and Hrstić 2016). Croatia joined NATO in 2009 and became the youngest member of the European Union in 2013. M. Grbeša (*) • B. Šalaj University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_17

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Parliamentary Elections: 1990 to 2016 The evolution of the party and political system in Croatia has been decisively shaped by the Homeland War (Čular and Zakošek 2004), known internationally as the Croatian War of Independence. After declaring its independence on 25 June 1991, Croatia faced a rebellion from Serbian nationalists. Backed by the federal army and the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milošević, the uprising escalated into open aggression which lasted five years. The consequences of war are still vividly present in Croatian political life and are reflected in a number of issues: the economy, the status of Croatian war veterans, the trauma of war victims, the protection of Serbian minority rights, etc. The conservative HDZ ruled the country from 1990 until 2000. Founded in 1989 with a predominantly conservative and nationalist appeal, HDZ has been Croatia’s most resilient party. The semi-­presidential system of government furnished Franjo Tuđman, the first president of Croatia and HDZ’s wartime leader, with significant powers. Although he was hailed by many as ‘the leader who unified Croatia in 1991 and led the country to victory’, by the end of the 1990s ‘many Croatians had grown weary of Tuđman’s virulent nationalism, the rampant corruption under his regime, and his mismanagement of the economy’ (Freedom House 2000). After his death in 1999, parties from the centre and to the left joined a large coalition led by SDP to finally defeat HDZ in the 2000 parliamentary election. The first post-Tuđman presidential election, which was held three weeks later, was won by Stjepan Mesić, an underdog from Croatian People’s Party (HNS). Soon after, the semi-presidential system was abandoned and replaced by a parliamentary system, leaving presidents primarily with ceremonial roles. In 2003, HDZ regained power with its new charismatic leader Ivo Sanader, who transformed the party into a modern pro-European Christian democratic party, purged of extreme nationalists. Yet, despite some positive changes and Sanader’s determination to lead the way to the European Union, HDZ’s governance was again tainted by serious allegations of corruption. In 2007, Sanader won his second term only to surprisingly resign as prime minister in 2009, leaving his vice president Jadranka Kosor in charge of the country. Sanader was, along with several other HDZ officials, soon indicted on charges of corruption, arrested, and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison while the party itself was convicted for using secret funds.

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SDP and its ‘Kukuriku’ coalition won the 2011 election against the backdrop of the dire straits HDZ found itself in, and Zoran Milanović was appointed prime minister. Four years later Milanović’s SDP lost to HDZ and its newly acquired populist partner MOST, who had unexpectedly won nineteen parliamentary seats and used its blackmail potential to side with HDZ and decide the winner of the election. However, ongoing conflicts between HDZ and MOST led to the rapid fall of the government. An early election was held in 2016 which resulted in another HDZ victory, which, again, was unable to establish a government on its own and had to come to enter an agreement with its disobedient populist partner, MOST. The partnership between MOST and HDZ remained tense, and in April 2017, it finally came to an end, bringing the prospect of yet another early election. However, Andrej Plenković, the newly elected president of HDZ, managed to cut a deal with five MPs from the opposition HNS and thus secure a parliamentary majority (Grbeša and Šalaj 2018a).

Legal Framework Election campaigning or ‘electoral promotion’ as it is defined in Croatian legislation, ‘commences on the day of the announcement of collective lists of constituencies, and ends 24 hours before Election Day’(The Act on the Election of Representatives to the Croatian Parliament, Art. 28, Narodne novine 66/15). Electoral silence begins twenty-four hours before the day of election and lasts until the closing of polling stations. During that period, all campaigning is forbidden, as well as any kind of electoral reporting and publishing of exit polls or other electoral estimates. For years one of the greatest weaknesses of campaign regulation in Croatia had been campaign finance. The first encompassing law systematically addressing campaign finance was passed in 2011. The Political Activity and Election Campaign Financing Act finally prescribed spending limits per party and candidate for different types of elections, set funding restrictions and defined reporting obligations, and sanctions for violating the law (The Political Activity and Election Campaign Financing Act, Narodne novine, 24/11, 61/11, 27/13, 2/14, 96/16, 70/17). However, the law does not define ‘political promotion’ per se, which opens up numerous possibilities to dispute what campaign activities are or aren’t, especially when it comes to campaign spending reports.

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As for the regulation of campaign coverage and advertising, legal provisions address primarily free media reports, whereas regulation of paid political advertising remains exceptionally loose. Until recently, Croatia has had a very strict policy towards regulating campaign coverage in electronic media. All candidates and parties, regardless of their strength, had to be given equal time in electronic media, both public and commercial, including televised debates which were first introduced in 2005. This model is known as the ‘strict equality rule’ (Council of Europe, Venice Commission 2002). However, in 2014, the Rules of Conduct of Electronic Media with National Concession (Rules of conduct of electronic media with national concession in the Republic of Croatia during election campaigns, Narodne novine 118/14) were passed by parliament which entirely liberalised this segment. Consequently, all television stations started enjoying greater autonomy in deciding who they wanted on their programmes and what the debates would look like, including the public service broadcaster Croatian Radio Television. However, it is required to ensure at least five minutes of airtime for each candidate or party in its programme. Commercial broadcasters do not need to comply with this requirement, but most television stations pass internal codes of conduct in which they define their internal rules of coverage. The same applies for print media, while digital media are subject to almost no regulation. As for advertising, Croatia sticks to ‘American-style’ television advertising (see Lee Kaid and Holtz-Bacha 2006) with paid fifteen to sixty second video ads and no limitations on the purchase of television time. The only document reflecting on advertising content is the Code of Electoral Ethics passed by the Ethics Committee. Then again, no document prescribes penalties for parties and candidates who fail to comply with the vaguely defined categories of ethics and decent communication. The only sanction has been the broadcasting ban of ‘inappropriate content’ imposed by the State Electoral Commission on several occasions. However, the practice of removing video ads from the air on grounds of ‘inadequate content’, where there is no clear definition of ‘inadequacy’, was criticised by international monitoring organisations, such as the OSCE. In sum, campaign regulation in Croatia has improved since the 1990s but it still lacks a systematic approach and remains largely incoherent (Struić 2018). This should be primarily credited to the ignorance of the institutions which have been entrusted with improving the electoral process, such as the State Electoral Commission.

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Recent Political Campaign Trends The majority of research about Croatian election campaigns has been focused on ‘Americanisation’. Despite some contradicting evidence, most of the findings suggest that Croatian election campaigns are indeed Americanised and that the Croatian political market has gladly accepted practices and formats developed in established democracies. Acknowledging the mounting criticism of the Americanisation thesis and vociferous advocacy of alternative concepts (globalisation, internationalisation, Europeanisation of campaigns, and so on), we still find the concept useful to explain developments in the country’s political marketing, with the main emphasis being the personalisation and professionalisation of campaigns. Personalisation and Celebrity Politics The semi-presidential system, which was abolished in 2000, had equipped the first Croatian president, Tuđman, with extensive formal powers (Zakošek 2002). For his followers, Tuđman was ‘an “untouchable” charismatic leader whose role was almost Messianic’ (Čular 2000, 35). Therefore, his governance was characterised rather by ‘impersonation of power’ than personalisation. It was only with the 2000 election that conditions for the development of a democratic society were created while ‘the 2003 election marked the beginning of its normal and stable functioning’ (Šiber 2007, 153). Consequently, the modernisation of campaigns began after Tuđman’s death and with the victory of the progressive coalition in 2000; we will therefore focus mainly on that period. Evidence from the post-Tuđman era suggests that most of the campaigns have been candidate-centred (Grbeša 2009; Lalić and Kunac 2010; Kunac et al. 2013), with Ivo Sanader being the uncontested champion of personalisation in Croatian politics (Balabanić et al. 2011; Grbeša 2009, 2010). The pervasiveness of personalisation in Sanader’s case led scholars to resort to a ‘presidentialisation’1 thesis in order to fully deconstruct the utterly leader-centred approach which permeated not only his campaigns but also his governance (Nikić Čakar 2010). 1  Poguntke and Webb (2005) argue that the politics of democratic societies is moving towards a presidentialised working mode, even in the absence of formal institutional changes. The inherent logic of presidentialism is most visible along three axes: increasing leadership power and autonomy within the political executive, increasing leadership power and autonomy within political parties, and increasingly leadership-centred electoral processes.

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Personalisation was also registered, although to a much lesser degree, in the parliamentary campaigns of Zoran Milanović, Jadranka Kosor, and Andrej Plenković (Kunac et  al. 2013; Lalić and Kunac 2010; Vučković 2016). In addition, personalisation has been identified as one of the key features of election reports after 1999 (Balabanić and Mustapić 2008; Grbeša, 2004, 2009, 2010; Ježovita et al. 2018; Jugo et al. 2018). Apart from rare contradicting arguments which see campaign coverage in Croatia as being ‘de-personalised’ (Šimunjak 2017), the majority of studies show that political parties have been represented mainly through a leader’s persona while, convincingly, the most visible have been the leaders of SDP and HDZ. Interestingly, personalisation in Croatia has been mainly built on the political traits of candidates, while evidence of the privatisation of politics, understood as the strategic exposure of candidates’ privacy to advance their political goals, remains for the most part, very modest. Straightforward references to leaders’ private lives have been generally very rare, both in campaigns and media reports (Grbeša 2010; Jugo et al. 2018). On the other hand, Croatian politicians on the whole readily resort to ‘humanisation’ as a less explicit image strategy which helps them appear more ‘personable’, more familiar, and in touch with ordinary people (Holtz-Bacha 2004). Casual interaction with citizens, use of informal language, appearing in informal situations, and so forth have been routinely present in Croatian politics, but several politicians, such as Stjepan Mesić and Milan Bandić, the mayor of Zagreb and leader of the parliamentary party Milan Bandić 365—Labour and Solidarity Party (BM 365), made humanisation their trademark (Grbeša 2004; Grbeša and Šalaj 2018b). Another personalisation-related tactic which has been fairly present in Croatian campaigns is the popularisation of politics, a fusion of pop culture and politics that is, according to Street (2004), one of the defining features of celebrity politics. Celebrity politics has been exercised in Croatia in many different ways, from celebrity endorsements, to stepping into the shoes of show business celebrities and flirting with pop-cultural references. Celebrity endorsements have been very typical of HDZ, who have  has? enjoyed great support from Croatian singers (Bagarić 2015) and especially sportsmen (Bagarić 2017); they were particularly vocal in supporting Ivo Sanader in 2003 and 2007. After Sanader’s imprisonment and corruption sentences in 2010, celebrities became more cautious in expressing their political support. However, numerous sportsmen joined the ranks to sup-

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port HDZ again in 2015 (Bagarić 2017). Milan Bandić has also been very agile in recruiting support from distinguished sportsmen and especially sportswomen, who not only endorsed him but have competed on his ballots. Although left-wing parties have been supported by sportsmen as well, these endorsements have not been nearly as systematic and strategic as the support for HDZ or, more recently, Milan Bandić. Politicians from all parties routinely engage musicians to perform at their rallies (Bagarić 2015); however, there have been increasingly more attempts to use music as a personal branding strategy. The recent case of the high-ranking, sturdy HDZ politician Milijan Brkić is quite illustrative. In the 2016 parliamentary election, Milijan Brkić competed for preferential votes which would propel him to parliament. His image of a rough, conservative, affair-tainted politician started to change in the first weeks of the campaign when he posted a photo of himself in a Johnny Cash t-shirt. The media immediately fell for the PR stunt and began framing Brkić as ‘HDZ’s Johnny Cash’ (T-portal 2016a). His strategic use of references to the iconic singer continued throughout the campaign and gained him huge media visibility, shifting the media focus from his affairs to Brkić’s personal rebranding, making him appear more likeable and in touch with the electorate, and eventually winning him a parliamentary seat (Grbeša and Pandžić Skoko 2017). Professionalisation, Advertising, and the Rise of Digital Campaigning The professionalisation of Croatian election campaigns is mostly visible in the high production standards of campaign materials and outsourcing professionals (PR and advertising agencies, movie directors, creative designers, and occasionally, campaign advisers) but less so in terms of campaign strategies. Although basic marketing procedures, such as public opinion research, voter targeting, etc., have become an integral part of all major campaigns, strategy remains the weakest link in Croatian campaign communication. While some parties confirm that they rely on external expertise, others claim to use only party resources (T-portal 2016b). It remains unclear if this is genuinely the case or if parties are reluctant to admit to the use of communication professionals. Two major parties have confessed to having contracted the services of international advisers and spin doctors, although their engagement has always had a touch of secrecy

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and speculation. In 2007, Ivo Sanader hired Irish political consultant PJ Mara who worked for Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern while SDP was being briefed by the British The Campaign Company. In 2015, Zoran Milanović hired Alexander Braun from the American company Penn Schoen Berland. Still, the impression is that the overall quality of campaigns has regressed in the last couple of years. Lalić (2015) assesses that the 2015 parliamentary campaign was extremely vague—especially on the side of the Homeland Coalition led by HDZ—and, in terms of paid advertising, that  was significantly less represented than in previous parliamentary campaigns. Billboards, television, and radio commercials remain the dominant channels of advertising while digital media occupy an ever more prominent role in campaigns of all parties and candidates. Parties are especially active on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube since these platforms are the most popular in Croatia (Vučković 2016). However, scholars mostly agree that Croatian parties and candidates have not yet seized the full potential of social networks (Vučković 2016; Šimunjak et al. 2017). This however does not apply to populist parties MOST and Human Shield, who were exceptionally successful at utilising social media in the 2015 and 2016 parliamentary elections and beyond (Barišić 2018). Given their low visibility in mainstream media throughout the campaigns and their surprisingly good results, especially for MOST in 2015 and Human Shield in 2016, it seems they compensate for their underrepresentation in mainstream media with the skilful use of online resources. There is also evidence of rather effective use of digital media by some mainstream politicians, especially in preferential campaigns. One such example is Anka Mrak Taritaš, who was on HNS’s ballot in the 2015 and 2016 parliamentary elections, and in both years won a seat in parliament based on preferential votes. Her witty communication on Twitter contributed to her electoral success (Vučković 2016) and earned her the titles ‘biggest star of preferential voting’ and ‘queen of social media’ (RTL 2017). Another common indicator of the Americanisation of election campaigns is the negativity of campaign communication. Evidence from Croatia suggests that campaigns have become increasingly negative in recent years, with the 2013 local elections probably being the turning point (Haramija and Poropat Darrer 2014). In her analysis of television advertising in the 2003 and 2007 parliamentary elections, Grbeša (2009)

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established that the 2007 campaign was much more negative than the 2003 campaign but that attacks were for the most part cocooned in contrast ads, with only one advertisement being outright negative. Balabanić et  al. (2011) analysed newspaper ads in the same 2007 campaign and found negative messages in ten per cent of the ads published by HDZ and SDP, while ads from other parties contained no negative messages whatsoever. However, Lalić (2015, 14) argues that in the 2015 parliamentary campaign, political rivals commonly resorted to ‘manipulation, half-truths, lies, rumors, and moral discrediting of opponents’. Guerrilla marketing has also become a widespread method of negative campaigning in Croatia. Dirty internet campaigns, anonymous billboards, and even fake news are some of the usual tactics. Although there is no longitudinal analysis of the overall campaign valence one could quote, evidence from different elections suggests that campaigns in Croatia have become more negative. Finally, it should be said that canvassing still represents a very important and efficient campaigning technique, especially for parties with strong grassroots support, such as HDZ and the regional Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS).

Conclusion Scholarly research of political marketing in Croatia has been mostly preoccupied with the presence of Americanisation in national campaigns. There is actually very little research which departs from this frame and looks at the country-specific contributions to the field. With that in mind, the conclusion of this case study boils down to four main points. First, the real modernisation of Croatian campaigns began after the death of first Croatian president and war-time leader, Franjo Tuđman. The victory of the SDP’s coalition in 2000 accelerated the process of professionalisation, but the quantum leap in the country’s political marketing came with Ivo Sanader. However, his contribution to the development of election campaigning in Croatia was later severely tainted by his foul play. Secondly, personalisation constitutes a distinguishing feature not only of presidential but also parliamentary campaigns. It was most prominent ­during Sanader’s era, but it was present in the campaigns of his successors too, albeit to a lesser degree. Personalisation represents an important feature of election coverage as well—primarily in the sense of a leaders’ media visibility and reporting about parties through leaders’ personas. Interestingly,

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media remain rather discreet about politicians’ private lives while politicians are equally reluctant to strategically use their privacy for campaign purposes. However, they gladly employ less intrusive strategies, such as humanisation. Celebrity politics came to represent another important trait of Croatian campaigns, especially in terms of the popularisation of politics and celebrity endorsements, which have been most systematically deployed by HDZ. Thirdly, Croatian politicians still predominantly rely on traditional forms of advertising such as billboards, posters, newspaper ads, and television and radio commercials. Mainstream parties and candidates do recognise the importance of digital campaigning, but the Internet has been most enthusiastically embraced by the populist parties MOST and Human Shield. Although the outsourcing of campaign experts, even foreign, is fairly common, strategies still remain the weakest spot in Croatian election campaigns (Table 17.1). Finally, the analysis laid out in this chapter suggests that Croatia is a relatively good political marketing student. Unfortunately, advances in political marketing have not been accompanied by adequate campaign regulation. Necessary legal changes continue to be slow, insufficient, and subject to the ignorance of the relevant institutions.

1995

1992

Single-member districts, TRS (two-round system)

1990

Basic campaign characteristics

Premodern campaigning, domination of direct communication and posters. Mixed electoral system Premodern campaigning, (a) PR-List (60 seats): 2% based mostly on direct threshold, D’Hondt communication, posters method; and printed advertising. (b) single-member district (60 seats)—FPTP (first past the post) Mixed electoral system Premodern campaigning, (a) PR-List (80 seats); 5% greater role of media and and 8% for coalitions of TV commercials, start of two parties, and 11% for transition towards modern coalition of three parties campaigns. or more threshold, D’Hondt method; (b) single-member district (32 seats)—FPTP

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 17.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Croatia

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

Nationalistic cleavage, war for independence.

Yes

(continued)

Yes

No

No

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

State of federation and No position of Croats in it, sovereignty, nationalistic cleavage. First election in an No independent state, nationalistic cleavage, war for independence.

Main campaign topics

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PR-List, 10 electoral districts, 5% threshold at constituency-level, D’Hondt methoda.

2000

2011

2007

2003

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 17.1 (continued)

Issues

Modern campaigning, Yes professionalisation, presence of elaborate strategies and marketing techniques; use of agencies, consultants, and opinion polling; rise of digital campaigning and guerrilla marketing.

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Candidates

Campaign focus

Modern campaigning, Yes presence of elaborate strategies and marketing techniques; use of agencies and consultants. Modern campaigning, Yes professionalisation, presence of elaborate strategies and marketing techniques; use of agencies, consultants, and opinion Yes polling.

Basic campaign characteristics

Nationalistic cleavage, economic growth, cooperation with the Hague tribunal, income taxes. Political corruption, nationalistic cleavage, accession to the European Union, voting right of Croatian diaspora. Political corruption, economic crisis.

Political corruption, nationalistic cleavage.

Main campaign topics

N/A

Yes

Yes

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

248  M. GRBEŠA AND B. ŠALAJ

PR-List, 10 electoral districts, 5% threshold at constituency-level, D’Hondt method, closed unblocked lists with preferential voting.

Type of communication (ads and media)

Posters, newspaper ads, leaflets.

Posters, newspaper ads, leaflets, paid radio/ television commercials.

2015

Year of election

1990

1992

2016

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 17.1 (continued)

Issues

Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing. Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing.

Types of campaign activities

N/A

N/A

No

No

Use of polling Campaign and research spending limits techniques?

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

Modern campaigning, Yes professionalisation, presence of elaborate strategies and marketing Yes techniques; use of agencies, consultants, and opinion polling; extensive use of digital campaigning and guerrilla marketing.

Basic campaign characteristics

No free election broadcasts, only assigned free television/radio slots for presentation of a list.

No

Free airtime on public media

Nationalistic cleavage, political corruption, economic growth. Nationalistic cleavage, political corruption, economic growth, education reform.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Notes

(continued)

Possibility to buy airtime

N/A

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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249

Type of communication (ads and media)

Posters, billboards, newspaper ads, leaflets, paid radio/television commercials.

Posters, billboards, leaflets, newspaper ads, paid radio and television commercials, GOTV.

Posters, billboards, leaflets, newspaper ads, paid radio and television commercials, GOTV.

Posters, billboards, leaflets, newspaper ads, paid radio and television commercials, GOTV, online campaigning.

Year of election

1995

2000

2003

2007

Table 17.1 (continued)

Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing, manifesto launch.

Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing.

Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing.

Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing.

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

Yes

N/A

No

No

No

No

Use of polling Campaign and research spending limits techniques? No free election broadcasts, only assigned free television/radio slots for presentation of a list. No free election broadcasts, only assigned free television/radio slots for presentation of a list No free election broadcasts, only assigned free television/radio slots for presentation of a list No free election broadcasts, only assigned free television/radio slots for presentation of a list

Free airtime on public media

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Notes

(continued)

Possibility to buy airtime

250  M. GRBEŠA AND B. ŠALAJ

Posters, billboards, leaflets, newspaper ads, paid radio and television commercials, GOTV, guerrilla marketing, digital campaigning. Posters, billboards, leaflets, newspaper ads, paid radio and television commercials, GOTV, guerrilla marketing, digital campaigning.

Posters, billboards, paid radio and television commercials, GOTV, guerrilla marketing, digital campaigning.

2011

2016

Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing, manifesto launch.

Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing, manifesto launch.

Rallies, party conventions, door-to-door canvassing, manifesto launch.

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

Yes

Possibility to buy airtime

No free election Yes broadcasts, only assigned free television/radio slots for presentation of a list

Free airtime on public media

No free election Yes broadcasts, only assigned free television/radio slots for presentation of a list; first primeministerial TV debate Yes. 1.5 million No free election Yes HRK (~ broadcasts, only 200,000 EUR) assigned free per list per television/radio slots district for presentation of a list

Yes. 1.5 million HRK (~ 200,000 EUR) per list per district

Yes. 1.5 million HRK (~ 200,000 EUR) per list per district

Use of polling Campaign and research spending limits techniques?

Notes

a Aside from these ten districts, there are two additional, special districts: one electoral district for the Croatian diaspora (3 seats) and one electoral district for national minorities (eight seats). Since 1992, a certain number of seats has been reserved for representatives of the Croatian diaspora and national minorities

2015

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 17.1 (continued)

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References Bagarić, Andrea. 2015. Uloga glazbenika u kreiranju imidža kandidata na predsjedničkim izborima 2000., 2005. i 2009./2010. u Hrvatskoj. Magistarski rad, Fakultet političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb. Bagarić, Jelena. 2017. Uloga sportaša u parlamentarnim izbornima kampanjama u Hrvatskoj od 2000. do 2015. godine. Magistarski rad, Fakultet političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb. Balabanić, Ivan, and Marko Mustapić. 2008. Medijska retorika u predizbornom razdoblju 2007: Analiza dnevnog tiska. Društvena istraživanja 17 (4–5): 647–669. Balabanić, Ivan, Marko Mustapić, and Stanko Rihtar. 2011. Amerikanizacija’ kampanje u hrvatskom dnevnom tisku. Društvena istraživanja 20 (2): 359–378. Barišić, Branimir. 2018. Populizam u hrvatskoj: populistički elementi u političkoj komunikaciji Ivana Pernara. Specijalistički rad, Fakultet političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb. Council of Europe. 2002. Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters: Guidelines and Explanatory Report – Adopted by the Venice Commission at its 51st session (Venice, 5–6 July 2002). Čular, Goran. 2000. Political Development in Croatia 1990–2000: Fast Transition – Postponed Consolidation. Politička misao 37 (5): 30–46. Čular, Goran, and Nenad Zakošek. 2004. Croatia. In The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe, ed. Sten Berglund, Joakim Ekmanand, and Frank H. Aerebrot, 451–492. Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar. Freedom House. (2000). Freedom in the World 2000. https://freedomhouse. org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2000. Accessed 20 June 2019. Grbeša, Marijana. 2004. Personalisation in Presidential Elections in Croatia in 2000: How Personal Did the Candidates Go and What Did the Press Cover? Politička misao 41 (5): 52–73. ———. 2009. Politika osebnosti na Hrvaškem: analiza volilnih kampanj na parlamentarnih volitvah 2003 in 2007. Teorija in praksa 45 (6): 788–816. ———. 2010. Privatisation of Politics in Croatia: Analysis of the 2003 and 2007 Parliamentary Elections. Medijska istraživanja 16 (2): 57–79. Grbeša, Marijana, and Berto Šalaj. 2018a. Populism in Croatia: The Curious Case of the Bridge (Most). Anali Hrvatskog politološkog društva 14 (1): 7–30. ———. 2018b. Textual Analysis: An Inclusive Approach in Croatia. In The Ideational Approach to Populism: Concept, Theory and Analysis, ed. Kirk A. Hawkins, Ryan E. Carlin, Levente Littway, and Cristóbal Riviera Kaltwasser, 67–89. London and New York: Routledge. Grbeša, Marijana, and Martina Pandžić Skoko. 2017. Here Comes Johnny: Iconic Music and Rebranding in Politics. Paper presented at the seminar of the Nordic Celebrity Studies Network, 19 January 2017, Roskilde University, Denmark.

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Haramija, Paramija, and Jagoda Poropat Darrer. 2014. Negativna izborna kampanja  – uzroci, posljedice i etička dimenzija. Primjer izbora za tijela lokalne samouprave u Republici Hrvatskoj 2013. Obnovljeni život: časopis za filozofiju i religijske znanosti 69 (1): 19–36. Holtz-Bacha, Christina. 2004. Germany: How the Private Life of Politicians Got into the Media. Parliamentary Affairs 57 (1): 41–52. Ježovita, Josip, Mateja Plenković, and Vanesa Varga. 2018. Izborne kampanje 2015. i 2016. godine: analiza obilježja naslova i toniranje vijesti na dnevno informativnim portalima. Društvena istraživanja 27 (3): 407–429. Jugo, Damir, Lana Ciboci, and Maja Banovac Barić. 2018. Political Leaders in Daily Newspapers: Analysis of the 2016 Parliamentary Elections. Društvena istraživanja 27 (3): 473–491. Kunac, Suzana, Dražen Lalić, and Martina Andrijević. 2013. Tihi glas, ujutro u Americi: izborna kampanja 2011. u Hrvatskoj. Politička misao 50 (2): 75–97. Lalić, Dražen. 2015. Izborna kampanja 2015. godine: ni predstavljanje ni proizvodnja politike – dugotrajna komunikacijska i politička zbrka. Političke analize 6 (24): 12–18. Lalić, Dražen, and Suzana Kunac. 2010. Izborne kampanje u Hrvatskoj: dvije studije o tri izborna nadmetanja. Zagreb: Fakultet političkih znanosti. Lee Kaid, Lynda, and Christina Holtz-Bacha. 2006. Television Advertising and Democratic Systems Around the World: A Comparison of Videostyle Content and Effects. In The Sage Handbook of Political Advertising, ed. Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, 445–458. London: Sage. Mustapić, Marko, and Ivan Hrstić. 2016. Populizam u Hrvatskoj izmeđ ideologije i političkog stila  – temeljne odrednice predizborne retorike predsjedničkog kandidata Ivana Vilibora Sinčića. In Jezik, ideologija i sjećanje u suvremenom kontekstu, ed. Ivica Šarac, 63–82. Mostar: Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Mostaru. Nikić Čakar, Dario. 2010. Prezidencijalizacija hrvatskih stranaka: slučaj HDZ-a. Anali hrvatskog politološkog društva 6 (1): 29–49. Poguntke, Thomas, and Paul Webb. 2005. The Presidentialization of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pravila o postupanju elektroničkih medija s nacionalnom koncesijom u Republici Hrvatskoj tijekom izborne promidžbe (Rules of conduct of electronic media with national concession in the Republic of Croatia during election campaign). Narodne novine 118/14. RTL. 2017. HNS-ova kraljica društvenih mreža uzvraća udarac: Anka Mrak Taritaš na Twitteru poručila da ne odustaje od kandidature za gradonačelnicu. RTL, January 18. https://vijesti.rtl.hr/novosti/hrvatska/2039427/hns-ova-kraljicadrustvenih-mreza-uzvraca-udarac-anka-mrak-taritas-na-twitteru-porucila-dane-odustaje-od-kandidature-za-gradonacelnicu/. Accessed 20 June 2019. Šiber, Ivan. 2007. Političko ponašanje. Zagreb: Politička kultura.

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Šimunjak, Maja. 2017. (De-)personalization of Mediated Political Communication: Comparative Analysis of Yugoslavia, Croatia and the United Kingdom from 1945 to 2015. European Journal of Communication 32 (5): 473–489. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0267323117725972. Šimunjak, Maja, Dubravka Sinčić Ćorić, and Ružica Brečić. 2017. Political Impression Management Through Direct and Mediated Communication: The 2014/2015 Croatian Presidential Elections. Društvena istraživanja 26 (4): 539–560. Street, John. 2004. Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Representation. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 6 (4): 432–452. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2004.00149.x. Struić, Gordan. 2018. Uređenje izborne kampanje (promidžbe) u Republici Hrvatskoj i problem (ne)koherentnosti važećega normativnog okvira. Medijske studije 9 (17): 70–90. https://doi.org/10.20901/ms.9.17.5. T-portal. 2016a. HDZ’s Johnny Cash: Milijan Brkić Changed His Image in the Campaign, August 19. https://www.tportal.hr/vijesti/clanak/milijan-brkicu-kampanji-promijenio-imidz-20160819. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2016b. Tko je u kampanji sam svoj majstor, a tko za čaroliju treba PR mange? August 29. https://www.tportal.hr/vijesti/clanak/tko-je-u-kampanjisam-svoj-majstor-a-tko-za-caroliju-treba-pr-mange-20160826. Accessed 20 June 2019. Vučković, Milica. 2016. Personalizacija politike u Hrvatskoj na prijevremenim parlamentarnim izborima 2016. godine. Političke analize 9 (27): 11–15. Zakon o financiranju političkih aktivnosti i izborne promidžbe (The Political Activity and Election Campaign Financing Act), Narodne novine 24/11, 61/11, 27/13, 2/14, 96/16, 70/17. Zakon o izboru zastupnika u Hrvatski Sabor (The Act on the Election of Representatives to the Croatian Parliament), Narodne novine 66/15. Zakošek, Nenad. 2002. Politički sustav Hrvatske. Zagreb: Fakultet političkih znanosti.

CHAPTER 18

North Macedonia Mirjana Maleska

Country Overview In 1991, at the beginning of the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation, Macedonia,1 as one of its least developed republics, succeeded in peacefully achieving independence, although it was then shaken under the blows of widespread nationalism which ruined the Federation. In the Constitution of 1991, ethnic Macedonians, as a majority of the popula It is located to the south of Serbia and to the north of Greece with a territory of 25,713 km2 (9928 sq. mi). According to the last census (2002), Macedonia has a population of just over two million people (2,022,547). Broken down into ethnic groups, 64.2% are ethnic Macedonians, 25.2% are ethnic Albanians, 3.9% are Turks, 2.7% are Roma (Gypsy), 1.8% are Serbs, 0.8 are Bosnians, 0.5% are Vlachos, and 1.0% are ‘others’. The country’s two major religions are Orthodox Christianity and Islam. There is a general correlation between ethnicity and religious affiliation. The majority of Orthodox believers are ethnic Macedonians and the majority of Islamic believers are ethnic Albanians and Turks. Approximately 65% of the population is Macedonian Orthodox and 32% is Muslim. Other groups include Roman Catholics, members of various Protestant denominations, and Jews. 1

M. Maleska (*) South-East European University, Tetovo, North Macedonia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_18

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tion, proclaimed certain rights for minorities within their nation-state. Political representatives of ethnic Albanians in the parliament were not satisfied and didn’t vote for the Constitution. The security of the state in 1991 was in danger and the governments were not willing to extend collective rights to minorities. This tense situation between the two largest ethnic groups in the country lasted for ten years. In 1999, the regional context changed. NATO intervened in Kosovo and the Serbian Army withdrew from the border between Macedonia and Kosovo. Two years later, as a result of a spill over effect, the central government in Skopje faced an armed insurgence from a guerrilla group named the Albanian Liberation Army. After several months of fighting, full-fledged civil war was avoided thanks to the efforts of moderate politicians and the diplomatic engagement of the United States and the European Union. In August 2001, the peace plan, known as the Ohrid Framework Agreement, was signed, recognising the multi-ethnic character of Macedonian society and changing its constitutional system from majoritarian toward something which political theory describes as power-­sharing. From that moment on, political parties would lead their political campaigns, mainly misusing ethnic tensions for political mobilisation. In 1991, the international recognition of the country and the achievement of its strategic goals became an impossible task. Greece believed that, behind the name of its far smaller and economically weaker northern neighbour, there were hidden territorial pretensions and opposed the accession of Macedonia into NATO and the European Union. At the beginning of the 1990s, the country suffered two economic blockades imposed by Greece and became a member of the United Nations under the provisional name, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Twenty-seven years later, in June 2018, representatives of the Greek and Macedonian governments signed the Prespa agreement, solving the ‘name issue’ and establishing a strategic partnership between the two countries. Macedonia officially changed its name to North Macedonia (keeping the term Macedonians for people and Macedonian for its Slavic language). This long-lasting, emotional problem touching the pride and identity of the nation, influenced all political campaigns from 1990 to the present. Political parties in their electoral campaigns greatly misused this issue, blaming each other for the ‘betrayal’ of national interests.

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Legal Framework From 1991 to 2019 electoral rules changed several times. In the 1990s, the electoral system was majoritarian, favouring big political parties. Later it became mixed and then proportional, with six constituencies to assure the proportional representation of ethnic groups in parliament. The result was the appearance of a vast number of smaller political parties. Today, parliamentary elections and political campaigns are regulated by the constitution, the Electoral Code (2014), the Law on Political Parties (2004), the Law on Financing Political Parties (2004), provisions of the Criminal Code (1996), the Law on Media (2013), and the Law on Audio and Audiovisual Media Services (2013). These rules have been, more or less harmonised with European legislation. The electoral code defines an election campaign as a public gathering or other public event organised by the participant during the election campaign, a public display of posters, video presentations in public places, media and online presentation of elections, distribution of printed materials, and public presentation of the confirmed candidates from competent election bodies and their programs. The election campaign starts twenty days before the election day. Twenty-four hours prior to and during the election day, all participants are obliged to practice silence. For the purpose of collecting funds for financing the election campaign, the political party, coalitions, and the independent list holder of a group of voters or persons must open a transparent account and provide a unique tax number marked ‘for election campaign’. This account cannot be used for other purposes. The public broadcasting service, commercial broadcasting companies, and electronic media (internet portals) which have decided to cover the elections are obliged to do so in a fair, balanced, and impartial manner in their overall programme. This rule applies to space provided for free, as well as paid political advertising. The electoral code regulates that broadcasters, print media, and electronic media (internet portals) must in no way finance or donate to political parties. To ‘level the terrain’ for a fair election race, from the day the elections are announced until their completion, broadcasters, print media, and electronic media (internet portals) must not broadcast or publish advertisements financed from the state budget.

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The electoral code regulates that broadcasters, print media, and electronic media (internet portals) are obliged to provide a balanced approach for paid political advertising to all participants in the election process, and appropriately and visibly mark them as ‘paid political advertising’, clearly separating it from other media content. The public broadcasting service must not broadcast paid political advertising. To avoid abuse of public opinion polls, the electoral code states that results related to the participants in the election process shall be published no later than five days prior to the day determined for holding elections. Publishers are obliged to provide data on the name of the client who requested and paid for the poll, the institution which conducted it, the applied methodology, the size and structure of the sample, and the period in which the poll was conducted. The implementation of political campaign rules is monitored by the State Election Commission and the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services.

Historical Overview of Campaigns The first free parliamentary elections were organised at the end of 1990. The atmosphere was a flammable mix of fear concerning changes and enthusiasm for democracy. Freedom and political pluralism were attractive ideas and nineteen political parties (1115 candidates) took part in the elections (Mircev and Hristova 2008, 344). The electoral model was majoritarian with 120 constituencies, as were the number of parliamentary seats. The voter turnout in the first round, in accordance with the historical moment, was a high 84.8% and 76.8% in the ­second. From 1990 to 2016, five regular (every four years) and four early parliamentary elections were organised.2 From 1990 to 1994, the legal threshold (7% in the first round) was achieved by several parties, including two ethnic Macedonian parties who would became the largest parliamentary parties: the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM); the ‘people’s party’ with its democratic Christian orientation, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization—Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE); and the national party of ethnic Albanians, the Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP). From 1998 to 2016, SDSM and 2  In the country report, we will only analyse parliamentary elections in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2016.

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VMRO-DPMNE remained the biggest parliamentary parties, but instead of PDP, two other ethnic Albanian parties won seats in the parliament: the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) and Democratic Union for Integration (DUI). All these parties had different political platforms, but all agree that membership of the country in NATO and the European Union are primary strategic goals. After the end of the Cold War, some historical circumstances and political situations affected voter behaviour in Macedonia thus influencing parliamentary elections, as well as the political campaigns of the main political actors: (1) enthusiasm and fear, (2) ethnic conflict in 2001, (3) the Bucharest NATO summit in 2008, and (4) populism. Enthusiasm and Fear The most important circumstance which influenced the 1990s elections was the great social insecurity and fear of citizens used to living in a socialist state. The transition from a state to a market economy, delivered mainly through corrupted privatisation, impoverished the middle class and left many people unemployed.3 Data from the World Bank also confirmed rapidly growing social inequalities, a trend which has lasted to the present.4 Given these tectonic changes, the majority of citizens in 1990 voted for VMRO-DPMNE, which offered citizens nothing but immediate, unilateral separation from Yugoslavia, anti-communism, and Albano-phobia. The electoral campaigns of the two main Macedonian parties, SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE, were organised mainly through mass meetings with a lot of flags, offending speeches, posters, and graffiti. The influential national broadcaster Macedonian Radio Television at that time was under the control of SDSM, but that fact didn’t prevent its defeat. The party campaign strategies differed. SDSM’s leadership was still negotiating a peaceful separation from the Federation and was being very careful. For example, President Gligorov formulated the referendum question for independence as: ‘Are you for a sovereign and independent state of Macedonia with the right to enter into an alliance with the sovereign states 3  The figure was then among the highest in Europe. Unemployment, for example in 2005, was 37.3%, while in 2015 it was 27.3% (State Statistical Office). 4  Ten per cent of the richest people in Macedonia have incomes almost seventeen times greater than the same percentage of the poorest citizens (Ministry of Economy). In 1998, the Gini index for the country was 28.1. Ten years later, in 2008, the index was 44.2, while the latest data shows that it is 43.9 (World Bank Open Data).

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of Yugoslavia?’ On the other side, VMRO-DPMNE used a strategy of appealing to the burning nationalistic feelings of independence, no matter how much the cost or enmities against the Yugoslav Army. Part of their campaign strategy was to present the former communist regime as ‘murderous’ and to raise the feelings of injustice done to the country throughout history by provoking Greece. For example, the sun from Vergina, a symbol which Greeks see as their ancient legacy, became the official flag of the state. Another provocation was the map of Greater Macedonia (including Aegean Macedonia in Greece), regularly seen during political rallies. The peak of this provocative political campaign was the VMRO-DPMNE party congress, where the leadership promised the unification of Macedonia with the Aegean part in Northern Greece: ‘The next congress will be held in Thessaloniki!’ Albano-phobia at that time was also used as a powerful tool of the ‘people’s party’ in the electoral campaign, with the slogan: ‘Albanians go home to Albania!’ Although VMRO-DPMNE won the majority during the 1990 elections,5 its leader Ljupco Georgievski returned his mandate, refusing to be in a coalition government with Albanian party PDP. Later, during the 1998 elections, having learned the lessons of politics, he agreed to lead a coalition government together with the Albanian party DPA. Armed Ethnic Conflict in 2001 After the armed ethnic conflict in 2001, the concept of Macedonia as a nation-state was replaced by the model of power-­sharing, which consisted of an equitable and just representation of ethnic communities in the administration, army, and police, a high level of decentralization, minority veto, proportionality, and constitutional guarantees of minority rights. Executive power was shared between representatives of ethnic Macedonians, Albanians, and some other minorities. The Albanian language became the second official language in the country. Fear of new ethnic conflicts in the country helped the opposition party, at that time SDSM, and a party of former guerrilla fighters, DUI, to win the election in 2002 and to form a coalition government. The main characteristic of the electoral campaign was the division of politics, primarily 5  Electoral results of 1990: SDSM received 20.38% (220,748 votes); VMRO-DPMNE, 22.01% (238,367 votes); PDP, 12.35% (165,338 votes); and Union of Reform Forces with 11.86% (128,449 votes) (State Electoral Commission).

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along ethnic lines. The key races were among ethnically based parties competing for votes within their own community. Thus, the country had parallel election campaigns among, on the one hand, the main ethnic-Macedonian parties and, on the other, the main ethnic-Albanian parties. The Macedonian community was also divided between those who supported the Ohrid Agreement, mainly left-wing parties and those who opposed it: mainly conservative right-wing parties. A principal focus of campaign activities was the holding of rallies in main cities addressed by party leaders. Paid television advertising and commercial billboard posters also formed a prominent part of campaign activities. According to an OSCE report, the first half of the campaign was overshadowed by a rash of violent incidents, allegations, and counter-­allegations. Negative campaigning involving insults directed at rival party leaders was also a feature of the campaign (OSCE 2006). Bucharest NATO Summit and Its Consequences As long as the feeling of fear and injustice exists, citizens will vote for a party and a leader who is an unyielding ‘saviour’ in their eyes. This usually goes along with an authoritarian style of governance since everyone who criticises the party in power and its leader is a ‘traitor’. The conflict with Greece on the ‘name issue’ was for ethnic Macedonians a source of ‘burning feelings of injustice’ (Guelke 2012) and a constant source of mobilisation and manipulation of citizens for election purposes. SDSM, the party which had undertaken unpopular policies, lost a series of elections held in 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2014. Indeed, Macedonian society at that time was disappointed and angry. The opposition party SDSM accused the government of VMRO-­DPMNE of destroying the European future of the country, while the government accused the opposition of treason because of its readiness to compromise over the name with Greece. These fierce mutual accusations created the atmosphere during the early parliamentary elections in 2008. The citizens of Macedonia responded to the Greek veto at the Bucharest summit by giving massive support to the position taken by the leader of VMRODPMNE of not yielding to Greece’s ‘blackmail’. Gruevski addressed voters during the campaign with the following promise: ‘Give me an overwhelming majority and no one will blackmail me!’ And indeed, he won sixty-three seats in a parliament of 120, eighteen more than in the previous elections. SDSM dropped from thirty-two to twenty-seven MPs.

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The Albanian DUI won eighteen seats while the Albanian DPA took eleven seats. The coalition government composed of VMRO-DPMNE and DUI started its mandate and repeated this electoral success during early elections in 2011 and 2014. The electoral campaigns of 2011 and 2014 were very similar and were characterised by unequal terrain, where the lines between the state and ruling party were almost erased. Instances of early campaigning included paid double-page advertisements in several newspapers, links on newspaper websites to campaign videos posted on the Internet, and the distribution of campaign materials. For example, in 2013, the government and VMRO-DPMNE together broadcasted 21,780 spots on television or nearly sixty spots a day for the successes of the government (Jordanovska 2017). All this was paid for using monies from the budget. Billboards also appeared in Skopje. Campaigning largely took the form of rallies and small gatherings throughout the country. While VMRO-DPMNE used billboards and posters in large numbers, other electoral contestants relied on small events, door-to-door campaigning, and social media, attributing this partially to a lack of financial resources. Parties also promoted their websites as a means for citizens to get information on party candidates and platforms (OSCE 2011, 2014). Some of these findings, especially that the rhetoric was offensive and media coverage biased, were confirmed in the publication ‘Electoral campaigns of political parties’ after 2011.6 Populism With a stable two-thirds majority in the parliament, the ruling party VMRO-DPMNE controlled almost everything: the media, business, and 6  For the majority of citizens (56.7%), the rhetoric during the campaign was offensive. Debate among political leaders could not help the majority of citizens decide for whom to vote (61.7%) because either they had already decided (28.6%) or the debate had no impact on them (33.1%).The majority of citizens were informed about the campaign via television (72.2%), and a small section through newspapers (11.7%) and Internet (7.2%). 61.4% of the citizens responded that this did not help with their decision on who to vote for, while 35.7% said it did. All or most of the media did not report objectively, and the political parties did not have equal media treatment responded the majority of citizens (61.3%). Most of the citizens (40.1%) believe that the ruling parties were favoured by the media. In Saso Klekovski and Aleksandar Krzalovski’s ‘Electoral Campaigns of political parties.’ May 2011, MCMS, Skopje.

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state institutions. Huan Linz’s thesis that in an authoritarian system the parliamentary opposition and free media are treated as unnecessary democratic ornaments which merely hamper the efficiency of the government (Linz 2002) has found its confirmation in Macedonia during VMRODPMNE and its leader Nikola Gruevski’s ten years in power. He provoked Greece by erecting an enormous statue of Alexander the Great in the central square of Skopje and giving the names of ancient kings to the airport, motorways, streets, and so on. His electoral campaigns, based on the two slogans ‘Reborn in 100 steps’ and ‘We realise projects!’, seemed very efficient, but in time it was revealed that corruption was deeply rooted in the ruling coalition parties. For example, the price tag of Skopje’s 2014 new look (monuments, new façade, and buildings—mainly in an ‘antique’ style) has meanwhile skyrocketed to around 560 million EUR, far surpassing the initially announced figure of 80 million EUR. A Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) report revealed that most of the money spent was given to firms and people close to the ruling party (Jordanova 2015). On 9 February 2015, the opposition party SDSM publicly released a total of thirty-six packets of audio recordings, including telephone conversations of the prime minister, government ministers, and holders of high public offices like mayors, deputies, the parliamentary speaker, opposition leaders, judges, public prosecutors, as well as civil servants, journalists, editors, and media owners. So far, the published materials have reached about five-hundred pages of transcripts. SDSM claims it has access to about twenty thousand recorded calls and that these recordings were made by the national intelligence services and given to the party by whistle-blowers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was generally recognised that these recordings were made illegally over several years and are not part of legal and court proceedings.7 As a result of massive human rights abuses, the Gruevski’s government was exposed by strong critics. Demonstrators went to the streets and international pressure increased. With the mediation of the European Union and United States, four parliamentary parties—VMRO-­DPMNE, SDSM, DUI, and DPA—signed the so-called Przino Agreement where they agreed upon formation, besides regular, of the Special Public 7  The European Commission appointed a group of independent experienced law experts in order to quickly analyse the situation and make recommendations on these issues. The group was led by Reihard Priebe.

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Prosecutor’s Office (SJO) ‘for prosecuting criminal offences related to and arising from the content of the illegally intercepted c­ ommunication’. In September 2015, SJO began their investigations.8 Soon, bills of indictments were issued against more than a hundred high-ranking state officials from the ruling coalition, charging them with criminal association, abuse of funds for financing an electoral campaign, abuse of official position and authorisation, violation of the right to vote, violation of the voter’s freedom of choice, corruption, and so on. In April 2016, President Gorge Ivanov, supported by the ruling coalition (VMRO-DPMNE and DUI), announcing a stop to the criminal proceedings which triggered a massive revolt among citizens: the so-called Colourful Revolution. After several months of street protests that saw different colours thrown at buildings and monuments in Skopje and other cities, the government was forced to call early parliamentary elections in December 2016. Despite the scandal, the coalition led by VMRO-DPMNE won the election with fifty-one seats in parliament. The SDSM-­led coalition won forty-nine seats. Gruevski got a mandate to form a government, but he didn’t succeed9; the Albanian parties refused to cooperate. The mandate was given to the second party by number of seats, SDSM. Its leader Zoran Zaev successfully composed a majority with Albanian and other smaller parties and began his mandate as prime minister. On 24 April 2017, members of VMRO-DPMNE attempted to organise a coup d’état, entering the parliament by force, some of them with masks and weapons, beating MPs from the new ruling coalition.10 The coup did not succeed and legal proceedings were instituted against its organisers.

Recent Trends During the early parliamentary elections in December 2016, political parties and coalitions started campaigning with leading political figures touring the country and mobilising their voters. Contestants campaigned 8  On its official page (www.jonsk.mk), from 2015 to 2017 there were twenty bills of indictments charging 131 state officials from ruling party VMRO-DPMNE and its coalition partners. 9  VMRO-DPMNE, 38.14% or 51 seats; the coalition led by SDSM, 36.66% or 49 seats; DUI, 7.28% or 10 seats; DPA, 2.6% or 2 seats, while the new Albanian party BESA won 4.86% of votes or 5 seats in the parliament. 10  The first bill of indictment by the SJO, called ‘Titanic’, was issued against twenty-one officials, members and supporters of VMRO-DPMNE for ‘criminal association’.

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widely through social media as well as door-to-door canvassing, small scale meetings, and rallies. Forty-three billboards were visible in many municipalities, generally from the four main parties. Campaign messages focused on the economy, youth emigration, and job creation. While the majority of contestants used positive campaigning, negative rhetoric was also noted. The VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition used nationalistic messages and accused the SDSM-led coalition of attempting to weaken the national identity, presenting the elections as a referendum on the unitary and sovereign character of the state. In turn, the SDSM-led coalition accused the VMRO-­DPMNE-­led coalition of abusing state power for criminal activity. There were almost no debates between political leaders or candidates. As one OSCE/ODIHR report concluded: ‘Monitoring showed that the majority of the media was largely biased in favour of the ruling party and mainly negative against the main opposition party.’ Recent trends in political campaigning have been the hearty use of social media (Facebook and Twitter), surveys, and polls. In comparison with previous campaigns, internet use in the country has increased.11 An interview with a well-known, long-­time member of the Twitter community, “Viktor Stevich”, shed light on recent electoral campaigning on social networks. He said: Citizens in Macedonia ‘tweeted’ more actively about politics after the Arab Spring but politics erupted on Twitter in 2018, when the company increased the characters of tweets from 140 to 280. Anonymity plays a significant role because people finally speak what they think. The activists of the ‘Colourful Revolution’ in 2016 used Twitter efficiently to promote their ideas against the regime under the motto: ‘No justice, no peace’ and succeeded in provoking early elections. My general impression is that liberal left-wingers are more creative, intelligent, and charming compared to rigid nationalistic right-wingers who used mainly offence and threats.

Another recent trend in electoral campaigning is the use of surveys and polls. Political parties and television companies usually order surveys and polls from foreign or domestic companies. Whether these are impartial is difficult to say. However, there are some indications that political parties  According to Internet World Stats’, around 1,500,000 (72.2%) people have internet access, 68% or 1,408,278 actively surf, while around  1,000,000  (48%) have profiles on Facebook. Twitter has less active users, but they are very vigorous during electoral campaigns. Younger people, intellectuals, politicians, and civil activists are migrating from Facebook to Twitter. Campaigning through social networks is easier and less costly than ‘classical’ campaigning. 11

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are trying to influence voters though agencies which are close to them. A report published by the Macedonia Centre for International Cooperation (MCIC 2016) compared the polls of five domestic agencies (Dimitar Chupovski, Pavel Shatev, Brima-Galup, Rating and MProspect) with the official results after the elections. The conclusion is that agencies close to VMRO-DPMNE—Dimitar Chupovski, Pavel Shatev, and Brima Galup— had a significant deviation in their party ratings before voting and the official results, in favour of the ruling party, VMRO-DPMNE. The deviations of Rating and MProspect, in favour of the opposition party, SDSM, were less significant.

Conclusion From 1990 to the most recent parliamentary elections in 2016, citizens of North Macedonia experienced the bloody dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation, the introduction of political pluralism, a painful transition from a socialist state to a market economy, economic blockades and political pressure due to the so-called ‘name issue’, armed ethnic conflict in 2001 and the transformation of the nation-state into a multi-ethnic one, nationalism, populism, the massive abuse of human rights, and an organised coup d’état attempt in April 2017. These historical circumstances and political situations influenced voting behaviour, electoral marketing, and campaigning. From 1990 to 2016, five regular and four early parliamentary elections were held. For sixteen years, the ‘people’s party’ VMRO-DPMNE, with its Christian democratic orientation, was in power while the left-­oriented SDSM ruled for ten years. The Albanian party which would win in constituencies where Albanians are in the majority has always been part of the coalition governments. The evolution of campaigning is presented in Table 18.1. One of the basic characteristics of the electoral campaigns in the nineties was an eruption of political parties and a high turnout. For example, nineteen political parties and 1115 candidates took part in the 1990 elections, while 84.8% of citizens voted in the first round. 120 members of the Assembly were elected from party lists in 120 single-member constituencies. Later on, changes in the electoral system—making it proportional— resulted in an enormous number of political parties while turnout dropped. For example, fifty-eight political parties organised in coalitions or independently and 6157 independent candidates took part in the 2006 elections while the turnout was 56.1%. A second basic characteristic of the past three decades was nationalism; unknown in the previous system, it has dominated the political landscape

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under this one. At the beginning of the nineties, it was very aggressive, anti-communist, and anti-Albanian; however, it later became more moderate, taking the form of modern populism. The political representative of this political and ideological orientation was mainly the parliamentarian party VMRO-DPMNE. The party’s electoral strategies were, put simply, based on the myths of a ‘divided fatherland’, a ‘victimised nation’, or ‘hostile foreign interference in domestic affairs’, thus mobilising its voters around the ‘burning feeling of injustice’. After a change in party leadership, a new mobilising myth, starting with the 2006 election, was invented whereby modern Macedonians are direct decedents of the Macedonians of antiquity and Alexander the Great! A third basic characteristic of the electoral campaigns was the appearance of ethnic political parties, which represented the country’s minorities and mainly demanded the improvement of their group minority rights and ‘just’ participation in the government and other state structures. The main topics of the campaigns, besides national self-determination and NATO and EU membership, were the name issue with Greece, the privatisation model, minority rights, and unemployment. Later, youth emigration, foreign investment, job creation, and other social issues were included in the campaigns and brought forth at rallies in the main cities, which were addressed by party leaders. Paid television advertising and commercial billboard posters also formed a prominent part of the campaign activities. Monitors noted violent incidents, allegations, and counter-allegations during some election cycles (especially after the ethnic conflict in 2001). A final noteworthy feature of the elections was negative campaigning involving insults directed at rival party leaders. Debates on television between political opponents were extremely rare. In general, all electoral campaigns have been characterised by ‘unequal terrain’, meaning that the ruling party was able to use the state budget to advertise its ‘successes’ during the campaigns in media close to the government. According to a report issued by the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services, the government was the second largest advertiser in electronic media, spending 4,646,000 euros from the state budget in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The majority of the media was largely biased in favour of the ruling party and mainly negative towards the main opposition party. According to official reports, which the parties submitted to the institutions, they spent twice as much during the election process on their political campaigns as they had donations (Kalinski, 2016). In general, European standards for marketing and campaigning were adopted, helping the country improve the electoral process, but these were often broken or bypassed.

Electoral system

120 members of the Assembly elected from party lists in 120 single-member constituencies; 7% threshold in the first round. Majoritarian electoral system.

Year of election

1990

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Enthusiasm for democracy Yes and fear of changes. 18 political parties and one social organisation proposed in 120 constituencies and 1115 candidates; Rise of nationalism, appearance of ethnic parties and tough electoral competition between former communists and nationalists.

Basic campaign characteristics

Table 18.1  Evolution of Campaigning in North Macedonia

Bloody dissolution of Yugoslav federation, rise of radical nationalism in Macedonia. Anti-­ communism and albano-­phobia, demands for immediate and full independence of the country vs. politics of peaceful selfdetermination, conflict with Greece about the name Macedonia, political unity around strategic goals— membership in NATO and EU.

Main campaign topics

No

(continued)

No

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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Electoral system

120 members of the Assembly elected from party lists in 120 single-member constituencies; 7% threshold in the first round. Majoritarian electoral system.

Year of election

1994

Table 18.1 (continued)

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Enthusiasm for democracy Yes is still high, 28 political parties have proposed 1482 candidates for 120 seats, a group of citizens proposed 283 candidates. Nationalism and Albano phobia are still profitable ‘issues’ for mobilising voters. Membership in NATO and EU are common goals of all political parties but strategies differ.

Basic campaign characteristics

(continued)

No

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Nationalism vs. more No liberal views and political platforms; Albano phobia vs. more tolerant views and political platforms, ‘Name issue’ goes in front of the UN; privatisation, unemployment, and poverty are also among most important issues; NATO and EU are main strategic goals of all political options.

Main campaign topics

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Electoral system

Mixed electoral system: 85 members are elected from single mandate constituencies, using a majority method. 35 members are elected from national party lists, using a proportional system. The proportional distribution is according to the D’Hondt method using division numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 to determine the allocation of seats, threshold of 5%.

Year of election

1998

Table 18.1 (continued)

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Moderate nationalism—for Yes the first time nationalists and ethnic Albanians become part of the coalition government. More pragmatic approach toward the ‘name issue’ with Greece.

Basic campaign characteristics

(continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Compromise vs. No confrontation over ‘name issue’ with Greece, pragmatism vs. ideology of nationalism; national unity around strategic goals—membership in NATO and EU; privatisation, corruption, unemployment, and poverty among main issues.

Main campaign topics

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Electoral system

Proportional distribution system. 120 seats, with the division of state territory into six electoral districts units. 20 deputies elected in each constituency. D’Hondt method using division numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 to determine the allocation of seats, closed party lists, threshold 5%, 30% female quota on electoral lists for the first time.

Year of election

2002

Table 18.1 (continued)

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Violent incidents, including Yes attacks on and the killing of police officers and hostage taking not explicitly related to the election; attacks on party offices, as well as threats to and attacks on media representatives; certain actions by the authorities contributed to heightened tension during the campaign.

Basic campaign characteristics

(continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Ohrid Framework Yes Agreement (OFA), institutionalisation of ethnicity, consociational vs. majoritarian political system, peace vs. protracted ethnic conflict, advantages versus disadvantages of the OFA.

Main campaign topics

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Electoral system

Proportional distribution model. 120 seats, with the division of state territory into six electoral districts units. 20 deputies elected in each constituency. D’Hondt method to determine the allocation of seats, closed party lists, threshold 5%, 30% female quota on electoral lists.

Year of election

2006

Table 18.1 (continued)

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Political landscape is more Yes fragmented, politics is divided primarily along ethnic lines, and key races are among ethnically based parties competing for votes within their own communities. Instances of violence and intimidation during the first half of the campaign, a number of cases of serious irregularities on election day.

Basic campaign characteristics

(continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Nationalists vs. Yes moderates. Divided society; critics for the solutions of the OFA on side of ethnic Macedonians; support for OFA from the side of ethnic Albanians; front against compromise with Greece over ‘name issue’; membership in NATO, but without compromise with Greece; pro-Europe vs. euro scepticism.

Main campaign topics

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Electoral system

2008 (early Proportional parliamentary distribution model. elections) 120 seats, with the division of state territory into six electoral districts. 20 deputies elected in each constituency, D’Hondt, close d party lists, threshold of 5%, 30% female quote on electoral lists.

Year of election

Table 18.1 (continued)

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Fierce mutual accusations Yes created atmosphere during the early parliamentary elections. The citizens of Macedonia responded to the Greek veto at the NATO Bucharest summit by giving massive support to the position taken by the leader of VMRO-DPMNE, not to yield to Greece‘s ‘blackmail’.

Basic campaign characteristics

(continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Society is disappointed Yes and angry; opposition party SDSM accuses government of VMRODPMNE of destroying the European future of the country, while the government accuses the opposition of treason because of its readiness to compromise over name with Greece.

Main campaign topics

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Electoral system

2011 (early Proportional parliamentary distribution model. elections) 120 seats, with the division of state territory into six electoral districts Units, 20 deputies elected in each constituency. D’Hondt, closed party lists, threshold of 5%, 30% female quota on the electoral lists.

Year of election

Table 18.1 (continued)

Populism; ‘Unequal terrain’, where the lines between the state and ruling party were almost erased.

Basic campaign characteristics

Yes

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

‘Burning feelings of injustice’ after the Bucharest NATO summit, euro scepticism increased.

Main campaign topics

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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Electoral system

2014 (early Proportional parliamentary distribution model. elections) 120 seats, with the division of state territory into six electoral districts units. 20 deputies elected in each constituency. D’Hondt, closed party lists, threshold of 5%, 30% female quota on electoral lists.

Year of election

Table 18.1 (continued)

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Indirect control of the Yes governing party over the media because of the state’s dominance in the advertising market, media monitoring showed the majority of monitored media was largely biased in favour of one ruling party. The public broadcaster did not provide balanced and equal coverage to all candidates and parties.

Basic campaign characteristics

Ideology of nationalism and corruption hidden behind ‘political management’ and ‘pragmatism’; election motto: ‘we realise projects’; symbolic conflict with Greece through project ‘Skopje 2014’; economic development, foreign investments, youth employment, among the main issues.

Main campaign topics

(continued)

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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275

Electoral system

2016 (early The proportional parliamentary distribution model. elections) 120 seats, with the division of state territory into six electoral districts units. 20 deputies were elected in each constituency. D’Hondt, close party lists. Threshold of 5%. The quota of 30% woman

Year of election

Table 18.1 (continued)

Harsh criticism of government because of massive abuse of human rights (illegal audio recordings of telephone conversations of citizens); demonstrations, international pressure, diplomatic intervention; ‘Przino agreement’ under the auspices of the EU and US. Formation of Special Public Prosecutor’s Office (SPPO) ‘for prosecuting criminal offences related to and arising from the content of the illegally intercepted communication’; temporary, broad coalition government; opposition party entered the government.

Basic campaign characteristics

Yes

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Illegal audio recording; mass abuse of human rights; corruption at highest ranks of the government; early elections.

Main campaign topics

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

276  M. MALESKA

Speeches during mass meetings, billboards, leaflets, posters, ads, press conferences and interviews on the National Radio and Television. Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media, press conferences.

1990

1994

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 18.1 (continued)

Rallies, press conferences.

Rallies, demonstrations, press conferences, interviews.

Types of campaign activities

No

No

No

No

Use of Campaign polling and spending limits research techniques?

Yes

Yes

No

No

Free Possibility to buy airtime airtime on public media

(continued)

Second round of elections boycotted by VMRODPMNE and Democratic Party, as they claimed there had been irregularities in the first round.

Notes

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Type of communication (ads and media)

Campaign literature, posters, public meetings, advertisement on radio and television, etc.

Year of election

1998

Table 18.1 (continued)

Yes

Free Possibility to buy airtime airtime on public media

Yes, Yes 15 MKD per registered voter in the electoral district (approximately 4400 EUR per party per district). For the national list election, the limit is 15 MKD per registered voter on the general register (approximately 390,000 EUR).

Use of Campaign polling and spending limits research techniques?

Rallies, Yes canvassing, candidates’ debates on public television.

Types of campaign activities

Notes

(continued)

278  M. MALESKA

Type of communication (ads and media)

Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media.

Broadcasting and print media, billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media.

Year of election

2002

2006

Table 18.1 (continued)

Rallies, canvassing, candidates’ debates on public and private television.

Yes

Yes, Yes participant in the election campaign can spend up to 110 MKD (2 EUR) per registered voter in an electoral district.

Yes

Yes

Free Possibility to buy airtime airtime on public media

Yes, Yes participant in the election campaign can spend up to 110 MKD (2 EUR) per registered voter in an electoral district.

Use of Campaign polling and spending limits research techniques?

Rallies, Yes canvassing, debates on public television.

Types of campaign activities

(continued)

2001 armed combat between armed forces composed mainly of ethnic Macedonians and an ethnic Albanians’ militant organisation (National Liberation Army). Conflict is over with signing of OFA in August 2001. Coverage of some private broadcasters highlighted conflicts of interest caused by political activities of their owners. In 2005, Macedonia became candidate country for accession to EU.

Notes

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279

Type of communication (ads and media)

2008 (early Billboards, leaflets, parliamentary ads in electronic elections) media.

Year of election

Table 18.1 (continued)

Rallies, canvassing.

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

Free Possibility to buy airtime airtime on public media

Yes, Yes campaign organisers must open a special campaign account, through which all campaign donations and expenditures must pass in order to be registered for an election. There is a ceiling on total expenditures by a campaign, of 60 MKD (about 1 EUR) per registered voter.

Use of Campaign polling and spending limits research techniques?

(continued)

All contesting parties signed a code of conduct committing themselves to ‘promote free and fair elections and a climate of democratic tolerance’ and to ‘publicly condemn violence and intimidation’.

Notes

280  M. MALESKA

Type of communication (ads and media)

2011 (early Paid double-page parliamentary advertisements in elections) several newspapers, links on newspaper websites to campaign videos posted on the Internet, distribution of campaign materials, mobilisation through Facebook and Twitter. 2014 (early Billboards, leaflets, parliamentary ads in media, elections) mobilisation through social networks (Facebook, Twitter), posters.

Year of election

Table 18.1 (continued)

Rallies, canvassing.

Rallies, canvassing, billboards, posters.

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes, 3 EUR per registered voter.

Use of Campaign polling and spending limits research techniques? Yes

No

Free Possibility to buy airtime airtime on public media

(continued)

The ruling party spent direct budget money for ads of its “successes” in media close to the government.

Notes

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281

Type of communication (ads and media)

2016 (early Billboards, leaflets, parliamentary ads in media, elections) mobilisation through social networks (Facebook and Twitter) and posters. 

Year of election

Table 18.1 (continued)

Demonstrations, mass meetings, rallies, canvassing.

Types of campaign activities

Yes, 3 EUR per registered voter.

Yes

Use of Campaign polling and spending limits research techniques? Yes

Illegally made and released records of politicians, judges, journalists and other public figures over several years. On 24 April 2017, members of VMRODPMNE attempted to organise a coup d’état, entering the parliament by force. The coup did not succeed and legal proceedings were instituted against its organisers.

Free Possibility to buy airtime airtime on public media

Notes

282  M. MALESKA

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References Guelke, Adrian. 2012. Politics in Deeply Divided Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Jordanovska, Meri. 2015. True Cost of ‘Skopje 2014’ Revealed. Balkan Insight. https://balkaninsight.com/2015/07/27/true-cost-of-skopje-2014-revealed/. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2017. VMRO-DPMNE so kampana vredna eden milion evra. Prisma. https://prizma.mk/vmro-dpmne-kampana-vredna-eden-milion-evra/. Accessed 20 June 2019. Kalinski, Vladimir. 2016. Partiite za kampanji potrošile dva pati poveḱe otkolku što imaat. RadioFreeEurope/Radio Liberty. https://www.slobodnaevropa. mk/a/28171578.html. Accessed 20 June 2019. Linz, Juan José. 2002. Parties in Contemporary Democracies: Problems and Paradoxes. In Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Paradoxes, ed. Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero, and Juan José, 291–317. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MCIC (Macedonia Centre for International Cooperation). 2016. Sporedba na anketite so rezultatite od izborite. https://www.mcms.mk/images/ docs/2016/sporedba-na-anketite-so-rezultatite-od-izborite.pdf. Accessed 20 June 2019. Ministry of Economy. n.d. http://www.economy.gov.mk. Accessed 20 June 2019. Mircev, Dimitar, and Lidija Hristova. 2008. Modern Politology – The Foundations of Studying the Political Life. Skopje: FON University. OSCE. 2006. Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Parliamentary Elections, 5 July 2006: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/ fyrom/20630. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2011. Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Early Parliamentary Elections, 5 June 2011: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/FYROM/83666. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2014. Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Presidential and Early Parliamentary Elections, 13 and 27 April 2014: Final Report. https://www. osce.org/odihr/elections/fyrom/121306. Accessed 20 June 2019. State Electoral Commission. https://www.sec.mk. Accessed 20 June 2019. State Statistical Office. n.d. http://www.stat.gov.mk. Accessed 20 June 2019. World Bank Report Open Data. https://data.worldbank.org. Accessed 20 June 2019.

CHAPTER 19

Romania Adriana Ștefănel, Silvia Branea, and Ruxandra Boicu

Country Overview Romanians came out of Communism with a low standard of living but a high self-image. Although the last ten years of the Ceaușescu regime were marked by economic shortages and a continuous degradation of living standards, Romanians were permeated by a feeling of superiority towards the Other and of exaggerated confidence in their own power. On the other hand, a poor understanding of democratic mechanisms determined that most people voted for Ion Iliescu, a representative of the former communist regime, and rejected models proposed by his counter-candidates, Radu Câmpeanu and Ion Rațiu, both representatives of historical parties. According to the Central Electoral Bureau (www.bec.ro), in the 1990 presidential election, Iliescu won 85.07%, while Câmpeanu won 10.64% and Rațiu 4.29%. Endorsing the slogan ‘We will not sell our country’, Iliescu promised that in a few years Romania would reach and even surpass the living standards of Western countries. His opponents had the political

A. Ștefănel • S. Branea • R. Boicu (*) University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_19

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and economic experience of the West, but ‘had not eaten soy salami’1 along with their compatriots before 1990. Likewise, they shared a more balanced and pessimistic stand concerning the voters’ vision on the future of Romania. Because of the inability of the new parties—initially called the National Salvation Front (FSN), then called the Democratic National Salvation Front (FDSN), and ultimately the Romanian Social Democratic Party (PDSR)—to deliver the promised welfare for which they were brought to power, it was only in 1996 that the historical parties—the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Christian Democratic National Peasants’ Party (PNȚ-CD)—along with civil organisations like the Civic Alliance (AC), won both the decisive round of the presidential election (Emil Constantinescu, 54.41%; Ion Iliescu, 45.59%) and a fragile majority in parliament. This, nevertheless, allowed them to govern together with a reformed wing of FSN, the latter having coalesced around Petre Roman, the first prime minister of post-communist Romania. After four years of unprecedented political scandals,2 constitutional crises,3 and front page news,4 Emil Constantinescu announced before the 2000 elections that he would no longer run for a new term, confessing that ‘he was defeated by the Securitate’,5 and thus left a free path for Ion Iliescu6 to win his third term. This was also the last presidential term 1  Soy salami was an almost completely artificial food product and an unpopular symbol of life under the communist regime. 2  The Democratic party (PD) exit from government. 3  President Emil Constantinescu dismissed Prime Minister Radu Vasile, taking advantage of a legislative vacuum. The scandal which followed resulted in a clear stipulation in the 2003 Constitution on the relationship between the president and the government (prime minister). 4  The first Romanian ‘sexgate’ whereby Constantinescu was accused, without any evidence, of having sexual intercourse with an actress (Rona Hartner); cases of cigarette smuggling at the most important Romanian airport (Henry Coandă) implicating those to the vicinity of Prime Minister Radu Vasile; etc. 5  Securitate is the secret police of Nicolae Ceauşescu, officially disbanded in 1990, but whose practices and people were maintained in the post-communist period. 6  Since the candidates in third and fourth place, Theodor Stolojan (PNL) and Mugur Isărescu (Romanian Democratic Convention, CDR) respectively, launched into competition by the parties in the government arch and heavily weakened electorally as they were very similar (both former premiers, both recognised economists), in the second round, Iliescu had the anti-European ultra-nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor as a counter-candidate. Faced with this difficult choice, the democratic forces were united in support of Iliescu, seen as the only one of the two able to keep Romania on the European path on which it had embarked.

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obtained by a Social Democratic Party (PSD) member (FSN’s traditional wing). Since 2004, all three mandates to date have been won by right-­ wing politicians. The situation in legislative elections differed after they were decoupled from the presidential ones. Since 2012, in various alliances with right-­ wing parties, the PSD has retained its majority in parliament being the main ruling party, with the exception of 2016 when then Prime Minister Victor Ponta resigned following a tragedy, giving way to a technocratic government for one year.

Legal Framework Elections The constitution, elaborated by the Constituent Assembly in 1991, stipulated a semi-presidential republic with two chambers. The president was to be elected via a direct vote of the citizenry, the prime minister was to be proposed by the majority in parliament and accepted by the president while the government composition was to be approved in parliament. This system has led to a state of confusion and a generalised tension ‘between the president’s prerogatives and those of parliament’.7 Consequently, the regime gained presidential accents whenever a strong president moved to Cotroceni Palace,8 for example, Iliescu in his first 1992–1996 constitutional mandate, and Băsescu in 2004–2014; hence the need to limit the role of those strong presidents through hostile parliaments (to the president), which ruled mainly through emergency ordinances. This confusion was exacerbated by frequent changes in electoral law and the voting system. From 1992 to 2004, parliamentary elections and the first round of presidential elections took place at the same time, which allowed candidates in the presidential election to function as ‘locomotives’ for the parties and electoral alliances which supported them. During this period (except for 2004), parliamentary elections were won by the party or electoral alliance represented by the presidential candidate. The trend changed in 2003 when constitutional amendments introduced a five-year presidential mandate, thus decoupling parliamentary and 7  From an interview granted by political scientist Cristian Pârvulescu in the daily România liberă (Free Romania, 9.5.2013). 8  The headquarters of the presidential administration in post-communist Romania.

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presidential elections. The 2008 legislative election was organised on the basis of the law on the election for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate (Act No. 35/2008), which abandoned the vote on lists in favour of a majority uninominal voting system in a single round, according to the principle of proportional representation (Article 5, paragraph 19), as well as some other laws (Act No. 67/2004, Act. No. 2015/2001, and Act No. 393/2004). The inequitable effects of this law (cf. Preda 2013, 45) emerged from its very first application but really showed its limitations in 2012 when, in the social tension that had reached paroxysm,10 the invalidation of President Băsescu’s dismissal referendum turned into a massive vote in favour of his opponents in the 2012 legislative elections. In 2015, Romania’s parliament, elected by uninominal vote, approved by a majority the return to the vote of lists (Act No. 208/2015). In accordance with this law, following the 2016 elections, the distribution of mandates gave PSD, the opponent of running President Klaus Werner Iohannis, the opportunity to form a government together with ALDE, led by Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu and with the support of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR). From 2016 until the time of writing of this chapter (May 2019), three governments supported by the PSD-ALDE alliance have succeeded one another at Victoria Palace,11 the first of which was dismissed by a motion of censure submitted by the very same ruling PSD12 that had brought it to power. 9  Thus, in electoral constituencies where none of the candidates receive more than fifty per cent plus one of the votes, mandates are awarded through a complex two-stage system, initially within the same electoral constituency, then at the national level, and following the D’hondt Method. 10  The second referendum over the impeachment of President Băsescu was invalidated for questionable procedural reasons. The 7,403,836 citizens who voted in favour of suspending President Băsescu (only 943,375 people voted NO, being against the president’s dismissal) outnumbered those who, in 2009, elected him president (5,277,068), yet represented only 46.24% of the total population with voting rights (below the fifty per cent threshold necessary for validating a referendum). Băsescu’s opponents challenged the calculation of the number of citizens with voting rights but the Constitutional Court (CC), after debates which extended over a twenty-four period, found that the conditions for validating the referendum were not met. Three members of the CC had a separate opinion ‘considering that permanent electoral lists cannot include Romanian citizens residing abroad, nor those whose identity documents were not valid. In the end, we found that the final data could have brought about the validation of the referendum results.’ (Judgment in CC 6-21/8/2012). 11  The headquarters of Romania’s government. 12  It is not the first time PSD has voted for a censure motion against a government it belongs to in parliament. In 2009, less than two months before the presidential election, the

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Campaigns Regarding campaign regulations, there have been sudden changes and unexpected developments, mainly motivated by the need of leaders to preserve their power. Over the past thirty years, the funding of political campaigns, including their media access, have often been altered. In 1990, foreign campaign funding was forbidden. This provision, existing in other states too, with the legitimate aim of reducing foreign interference in domestic politics, increased inequality between electoral competitors. FSN, in power at that time, inherited the economic resources of the Communist Party of Romania (PCR), thus becoming the main beneficiary of this law, as opposed to the opposition parties, which had leaders and supporters in the diaspora. Later on, this legislation was reversed, but in 1990, for the historic parties in Romania, the non-acceptance of foreign funding was both a consequence and catalyst for being publicly labelled non-Romanian parties. Access to the media was another source of discrimination against the opposition in the early 1990s. Public television, under direct government control, was highly biased, favouring the leaders of the ‘televised revolution’ (Ion Iliescu and Petre Roman) and presenting the other competitors disadvantageously. Although through the electoral law, airtime during campaigns was regulated, the implementation of this provision was often deficient. The advent of private television broadcasters in the second half of the 1990s has reconfigured electoral legislation, including campaign provisions. In order to prevent political partisanship, these broadcasters had to apply uniform tariffs for electoral advertising and launch electoral programmes only under regulated conditions. In 2000, as onerous relations between the political and economic spheres became ever more obvious, as did the ever-increasing amounts of ‘black money’, electoral legislation on party campaigning became increasingly restrictive—although the rules were mainly applied a posteriori in court and only against competitors who had lost elections (as was the case of former Prime Minister Adrian Năstase, sentenced for financing his presidential campaign illegally). In act No. 334/2006 and No. 33/2007, regarding the financing of parties and their electoral campaigns, it is mentioned that in the fiscal year in which local, general, parliamentary, first government headed by Emil Boc, of which the Social Democrats were also part, followed a no-confidence motion submitted by PNL and voted for by PSD, after Boc’s ministers resigned.

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­ uro-­parliamentary or presidential elections are held, the ceiling shall be E 0.050% of the revenues provided for this purpose in the state budget for that year. Also, donations received from a legal entity in a year may be up to five hundred minimum national gross salaries at the level existing on the first of January of that year. Among the regulations of the 2016 legislative elections, one finds that the total amount allocated by the government for organising parliamentary elections was 227.7 million LEI. The maximum limit for contributions to the election campaign that can be submitted or transferred by the candidates, or by their financial agents, amounts to sixty minimum basic salaries at the national level for each candidate for deputy or senator. The maximum limit for funds which can be transferred by a political party to a bank account are national basic minimum salaries for each candidate for deputy or senator. Regarding electoral television advertising and shows, according to article 67 paragraph (7) of Act No. 208/2015 on the election of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, as well as for the organisation and functioning of the Permanent Electoral Authority, ‘it is forbidden to purchase broadcasting spots or electoral programmes’, except for electoral programmes in which the National Audiovisual Council has been notified (art. 4 par. [1] of the Decision no. 592/2016).

Historical Overview of Campaigns In the absence of an inheritance of democratic cultures and electoral practices, interrupted during the communist era, electoral communication for the first elections in Romania after 1990 was carried out with signs of amateurism. A series of interviews conducted by Alexandra Bardan (2001) with political communication professionals confirms the idea that it was only in 1996 that professional campaigning started in Romania after foreign specialists and important funding were used (Bardan 2001, 143). CDR and PSDR turned to the advertising agencies Saachi & Saachi and Graffiti BBDO, in addition to a team of American professionals who had helped Boris Yeltsin to win the Russian elections. In 1996, specialists from the United States were hired again (Bardan 2001, 144). In 1990, electoral posters were the main campaigning tools (for a broader analysis of the evolution of electoral posters in post-communist Romania, see Rovența-Frumuşani and Ştefănel 2015), but their use was rudimentary; many negative posters attacked opposition candidates, and few electoral spots were produced. The weight of the campaign was borne

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by meetings between candidates and citizens. The only televised confrontation between the three candidates (Iliescu, Câmpeanu, and Raţiu) organised by the national television broadcaster on the last day of the campaign, 17 May 1990, was particularly calm and consensual (Teodorescu 2005, 43–44).

Media Coverage of Electoral Campaigning— Finalists’ Televised Debates After 1996 It was only in 1996, when private broadcasters gradually started to cover the entire national territory and massively took over the public television audience while developing their own electoral debate formats keenly described by Beciu (2000), that we could finally speak about professional campaigning with campaign staff and complex campaigning strategies built on electoral studies and voter segmentation. In the decisive round of the 1996 presidential election, four face-to-face debates between the candidates were broadcast by all-news television stations. Unlike the salon-­like calm of 1990, the television debate between the two finalists was so tense that Ion Iliescu got confused and addressed Emil Constantinescu as Mr. Ceaușescu’. Although the means of electoral campaign communication kept diversifying—especially below-the-line promotion (BTL), denoting or relating to advertising by means such as direct mail, email, promotional events, etc.—television dominated four electoral campaigns with the exception of the 2000 elections when Iliescu, coagulating all the pro-democratic forces around him, refused to have a final television debate with the ultra-­ nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor. ‘Historic’ replies marked victories in decisive television debates: ‘Do you believe in God, Mr. Iliescu?’ (Constantinescu, in the 1996 final confrontation with Iliescu); ‘What misfortune has turned against the Romanian people to have to choose between two former Communists?’ (Băsescu, in the 2004 final confrontation with Năstase); ‘You liked last night’s meeting at Vântu13‘s, didn’t you?’ (Băsescu, in the 2009 final confrontation with Geoană).

They are still considered ‘magic bullets’ that helped win these presidential elections.  A controversial businessman responsible for the fall of the National Investment Fund, which resulted in about three hundred thousand small investors losing their savings. 13

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In exchange, the most recent (2014) presidential debates between the running Prime Minister Victor Ponta and Klaus Werner Iohannis and the quite unknown Sibiu Mayor, were the first elections in which television was no longer the decisive medium for the victory of a candidate. Actually, the 2014 presidential campaign generated certain frames of electoral campaigning: (1) the campaign as an ongoing event and (2) the candidates’ campaign tactics (Beciu 2014). Contribution of New Technologies In the meantime, the Internet has already reconfigured electoral campaigns and triggered the potentiation for populist discourse. In Romania, instead of finding a realm of dialogue, online users adjust themselves to a world transformed into a space of segregation, of hate speech, and populist dichotomies (Păuș and Ștefănel 2016). The intense usage of new technologies facilitates more complex electoral campaigning alongside official campaigns. For instance, within Go to Vote mobile phone messages (Momoc 2010), the following ‘juicy’ SMS was spread in 2004 in order to denigrate Năstase, who was running for president against Băsescu: ‘And if boughs knock on the window14/And you vote Bombo15/I ∗∗∗ on the entire country/And emigrate in Congo.16’ (Momoc 2010, 94). The internet was initially involved in negative campaigns with messages sent by email or Messenger that depended on users for redistribution, and later through complex campaigns that ‘turned the electoral campaign into a hoax of national laughter’, writes Todor, quoting journalist Vlad Petreanu: ‘Laughter is catching on. … It’s great what’s going on. There is no more effective treatment for the demagogic diseases of the political class than the laughter of the nation’ (Tudor 2008, 15; authors translation). The voters’ above-mentioned impulse to retain and spread negative electoral messages online contributed, besides realpolitik elements, to the citizenry distancing itself from both politics and politicians.  Referring to very famous verses by the national poet Mihai Eminescu.  An insinuating reference to Năstase’s alleged sexual preferences, never assumed by him or proven by his detractors. 16  This SMS allegedly sent by any DA Alliance, was so familiar that it reached traditional media. The most watched television station of the era (ProTV) opened its main news broadcast, after announcing the electoral results, with a live broadcast from outside the Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 14 15

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Recent Trends Nevertheless, the new trend in campaigning remains optimistic. Alongside the development of new technology-based campaigning, BTL techniques (posters, mashups, campaign tents, etc.) have been maintained and even reinvigorated, while face-to-face communication with the electorate intensifies. Even signature gathering, especially by nonparliamentary parties, but not exclusively,17 has become an aspect of electoral campaigning. In future campaigns, we can expect changes to the campaign mix. It will continue to include traditional media but in close relation to intense activities through all communication means (SMS, email, and numerous social networks). The development of interaction-based technologies and civic journalism are already changing Romania’s campaigning style by blurring the rigid boundaries between legal campaign periods and other stages of the electoral cycle. For example, Iohannis, the current president of Romania, has begun his campaign for a new mandate short after he took the presidential oath, which confirms the permanent campaign hypothesis (see supra). As new digitised generations become electorally active and attractive, new political parties/groups which communicate effectively in this medium (the Save Romania Union [USR], for example) make their appearance via live meetings with voters and happenings which are meant to create powerful political emotions, messages with a high capacity for viralisation, and engagement. A successful campaign relies on voters’ volunteer participation in this ‘concert’ of electoral advertising. In terms of campaign consultants, Romanian experts are beginning to prevail, although there are still big names from international political ­consultancies involved. Romanian experts are specialised in bold digital campaigning and are not dedicated to a particular political party.

Conclusion In Romania, electoral campaigning has come a long way, from its beginnings in 1990 with the appearance of the first electoral posters for the newly-born pluralist democracy, through its continuous diversification to 17  Băsescu had wanted to collect a million signatures to enter the electoral race, as a sign that Bucharest citizens, who had voted for him at the beginning of 2004 in his second mandate at the City Hall, supported him in his presidential endeavour as well.

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today’s sophisticated digital tools. The first period in the history of electoral marketing was little approached by members of the academic community, analysing voters’ behaviour and political persuasion. Moreover, these authors/analysts were learning the new field while it was in its configuration process. As a matter of fact, this first stage coincided with the public unmasking of electoral bribery under various forms, from food to plastic buckets to mobile phones offered to potential voters. In 2000, a notable professionalisation of electoral campaigning was manifested in Romania partly based on a gradual renunciation of electoral bribes alongside the development of electoral promotional materials, sometimes hiding the intentions of attracting voter sympathy by offering them objects of a symbolic character yet not always very cheap  (see Table 19.1). Regarding the media, they were pressuring the necessity of legislative frameworks for the balanced assertion of political parties in electoral races, mainly through fair access to audiovisual media. These efforts to regulate political marketing in the media have, however, proved to be insufficient after digital political instruments emerged and developed. A specificity in Romania is represented by the anti-corruption protests generated by #Rezist,18 which began in the first months of 2017 after the PSD government passed ordinances concerning the pardoning of some acts of corruption, amendments to the Criminal Code, and the decriminalisation of some forms of abuse of power. In addition to usual political mobilisation strategies, analysts noticed a collective involvement in building up slogans and choreographies during street protests, parallel to the online appearance of an opposition ethos to PSD’s ‘laws of justice’. Political humour, in particular online, has vigorously shaken the population’s apathy and disinterest as proved by increased voter participation (see the recent unprecedented participation in the 2019 vote for the European Parliament). In terms of humour, experts employed in the entertainment industry have started creating and viralising anti-­corruption messages (anti-PSD). No doubt, the #Rezist ethos will inspire many of the messages during the electoral campaigns to be organised this year and in the years to come.

18  #Rezist began as a Facebook group which turned into a large civic and social movement against the ruling coalition, with particular emphasis on anti-corruption issues and on the general rehabilitation of the entire political class.

Electoral system

Presidential election (two rounds are legalised, but only one round os needed to establish the winner), candidates have a prerequisite of 100,001 signatures to participate. Parliamentary elections held on lists. No lower limit for joining parliament, and the distribution in parliament is proportional. Particiaption in electoral race upon condition of 251 signature.

Year of election

1990

Yes

No

Semi-professional campaign, election posters and supporting rallies.

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus Issues

Semi-professional campaign, one TV debate with the three candidates.

Basic campaign characteristics

Table 19.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Romania

Romania’s post-­ revolutionary orientation.

Main campaign topics No

Foreign

(continued)

Cannot be specified

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Presidential elections in two rounds.

1992

Parliamentary elections on lists. Number of signatures necessary for enrolment in the electoral race increased and, for the independents, the criterion is prohibitive (0.5% of the voting population of the county in which they were candidates)—a different parliamentary entrance threshold for parties and coalitions of parties— distribution of seats in Parliament is proportionate.

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 19.1 (continued)

Semi-professional campaign, campaign posters and rallies supporting or contesting the candidates. Semi-professional campaign, not much different from that of 1990.

Basic campaign characteristics

No

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus Foreign

(continued)

Yes, local experts begin to appear.

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Socio-economic No crisis, monarchyrepublic cleavage, and ethnic cleavage.

Main campaign topics

Electoral system

Presidential elections in two rounds. Parliamentary elections on lists.

Presidential elections in two rounds Parliamentary elections on lists.

Presidential elections in two rounds. Parliamentary elections on lists.

Year of election

1996

2000

2004

Table 19.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Parliamentary campaign is subordinate to presidential one.

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus Issues

Modern campaign, Yes campaign spots made by professionals, messages addressed to target audiences, sociologically segmented.

Modern campaign, campaign spots made by professionals for the top two candidates, ‘premodern’ campaign for other candidates, negative campaign (masked) in TV spots. Professional campaign, campaign spots made by professionals with messages addressed to a specific target audience.

Basic campaign characteristics

Cleavage between nationalism and openness to the EU, problems related to corruption. Cleavage between corrupt and incorruptible.

Cleavage between communism and democracy, cleavage between nationalism and openness to the EU.

Main campaign topics

Yes, sociology specialists (often university professors).

Domestic

Yes

(continued)

Yes, specialists in electoral sociology and communication.

Yes, except Yes, sociology Corneliu and Vadim Tudor. communication specialists.

Yes. First international consultants appear.

Foreign

Presence of external advisors

Electoral system

Uninominal parliamentary elections with two rounds of redistribution. Access to the elections based on the provision of a deposit of 5 minimum salaries, a deposit which only returned to candidates from parties which receive more than 2% of the votes expressed at national level or to independent candidates who win over 20% of the votes in the uninominal college in which they are candidates. For candidates born before 1976, it is necessary to sign a statement stating they were not part of the communist political police. There was also the need for each candidate to submit a minimum 2000-signature list to the Chamber of Deputies and 4000 for the Senate.

Year of election

2008

Table 19.1 (continued)

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus Issues

Modern, highly Yes segmented campaign adapted to the profile of each uninominal candidate.

Basic campaign characteristics Foreign

(continued)

Yes, experts in sociology and communication.

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Cleavage between Yes corrupt and incorruptible.

Main campaign topics

Parliamentary elections on lists.

2016

2014

Uninominal parliamentary Modern, highly Yes elections with two rounds of segmented campaign redistribution. adapted to the profile of each uninominal candidate. Presidential elections in two Modern campaign, one Yes rounds of the candidates (the winner) bet on online.

2012

Modern campaign.

Modern campaign, spots focused on emotions.

Presidential elections in two rounds.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus Issues

2009

Basic campaign characteristics

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 19.1 (continued)

Foreign

Cleavage between Yes corrupt and incorruptible.

Cleavage between Yes corrupt and incorruptible.

Cleavage between Yes corrupt and incorruptible.

(continued)

Yes, experts in electoral sociology and communication. Yes, experts in electoral sociology and communication.

Yes, experts in electoral sociology and communication. Yes, experts in electoral sociology and communication.

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Cleavage between Yes corrupt and incorruptible.

Main campaign topics

Type of communication (ads and media)

Posters, electoral debates. The National Salvation Front also used unconventional means of communication and influence: three roses (a symbol of the party embellished at polling stations) Posters

Year of election

1990

Table 19.1 (continued)

Meetings with voters in large public spaces.

Types of campaign activities Cannot be specified.

Use of polling and research techniques?

Free airtime on public media

Campaign Yes expense limit is not specified, law requires public funding, but funds came hard and uneven; initially, law banned foreign funding, then allowed it with specification of source.

Campaign spending limits No private electronic media.

(continued)

State-controlled electronic media (TV and radio) biased towards Ion Iliescu and FSN (National Salvation Front) candidates for parliament; several opposition newspapers, but they had difficulties with distribution (newspaper distribution was a state monopoly) and sourcing paper (only one newspaper paper producer in Romania, and it distributed this paper arbitrarily).

Possibility to buy Notes airtime

Type of communication (ads and media)

Campaign posters, TV spots (made unprofessionally).

Year of election

1992

Table 19.1 (continued)

Meetings with the electorate. As a result of a scandal, public opinion found that the ruling party called up citizens under the pretext of a poll and threatened them so as not to vote for the CDR— Romania’s Democratic Convention; the case was not judged.

Types of campaign activities Cannot be specified.

Use of polling and research techniques? Legal provision on state support for electoral campaigns, but no rules of application of regulation and, implicitly, not put into practice. Another provision prohibited use of state resources, but not regulated either.

Campaign spending limits Parliamentary parties receive free access to National Television in proportion to the number of representatives in parliament. Non-parliamentary parties have access for a fee.

Free airtime on public media No private TV, local radio stations covered electoral campaign according to interests of station owners (most of the time close to local power)

(continued)

Record number of spoiled votes recorded and over 16% of voters voted on special lists. Both situations raised suspicions and prompted the opposition to say the vote was invalid.

Possibility to buy Notes airtime

Type of communication (ads and media)

Private TV station debates the novelty of this campaign, election posters remain important, BTL communication (pens, lighters, badges, bags with name of candidate or political party) developed, first letters from the candidates (Emil Constantinescu) appear.

Year of election

1996

Table 19.1 (continued)

Meetings with the electorate. As a result of a scandal, public opinion found that the ruling party called up citizens under the pretext of a poll and threatened them so as not to vote for the CDR— Romania’s Democratic Convention; the case was not judged.

Types of campaign activities Yes

Use of polling and research techniques? No limitation of campaign spending. Financial support forbidden if granted by state institutions and individuals or institutions outside country.

Campaign spending limits For parliamentary political parties and nonparliamentary parties which submit lists for 50% of the counties of the country.

Free airtime on public media Private broadcasters must have single tariff for all parties and candidates.

Possibility to buy Notes airtime

(continued)

TV debates, campaign Pseudo-events, posters, BTL, first meetings with viralised online the electorate. messages, campaign sms.

2004

Fewer than in the past.

General TV debates, election posters remain important, BTL increased.

2000

Types of campaign activities

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 19.1 (continued)

Yes, a publicly released race of polls, but internal surveys too; regulations appeared in polls made public.

Yes, publicity surveys and internal surveys.

Use of polling and research techniques? nu există limitare a cheltuielilor de campanie, dar există prevederi cu privire la cine și cât poate finanța un partid politic sau un candidat No provision in electoral legislation.

Campaign spending limits

Yes, no official specification determining airtime for candidates.

Yes, proportional to TVR (Romanian National Television) antenna times, forbidden to present electoral spots in programs other than electoral ones.

(continued)

Dinu Patriciu financed campaigns of both qualified candidates in second round.

Possibility to buy Notes airtime

reglementări legale cu privire la modalitatea de achiziție a timpilor de antenă și la tipul de emisiuni electorale care pot fi organizate

Free airtime on public media

Type of communication (ads and media)

Central and local TV debates, BTL.

Year of election

2008

Table 19.1 (continued)

Pseudo-events, meetings with the electorate.

Types of campaign activities Yes, a publicly released race of polls, but internal surveys too; regulations on polls made public.

Use of polling and research techniques?

Free airtime on public media

(continued)

Although regulations emerged regarding amount which candidate can spend during a campaign by a candidate, according to the unanimous opinion of political communication specialists, as well as public statements of those who participated in the electoral campaigns of various candidates and/or parties, these provisions were not met.

Possibility to buy Notes airtime

Yes, clear Yes, in proportion Yes, at equal regulations in to number of valid rates for all Financial Trust applications. candidates. Guide (depending on minimum wage).

Campaign spending limits

Type of communication (ads and media)

Electoral spots and other traditional campaign materials; nontraditional elements appeared too: electoral “manele” (modern gypsy music in Romanian)—see Traian Băsescu’s campaign

Year of election

2009

Table 19.1 (continued)

Pseudo-events, campaign kicks generalised (a clip in which, aparently, one of the candidates is in an intimate relationship with a woman; a clip in which, aparently, another candidate strikes a child, etc.)

Types of campaign activities Yes

Use of polling and research techniques? Yes; clear regulations in Financial Trust Guide (depending on the minimum wage).

Campaign spending limits Yes, not specified how they are set.

Free airtime on public media Yes, proportional to TVR (Romanian National Television) antenna times.

Possibility to buy Notes airtime

(continued)

Type of communication (ads and media)

Online campaigns

Year of election

2012

Table 19.1 (continued) Use of polling and research techniques?

Meetings with Yes electorate. As a result of a scandal, public opinion found the ruling party called up citizens under the pretext of a poll and threatened them so as not to vote for the CDR— Romania’s Democratic Convention.

Types of campaign activities Yes, clear regulations in Financial Trust Guide (depending on the minimum wage in Romania’s economy).

Campaign spending limits Yes, not specified how they are set.

Free airtime on public media Yes, proportional to TVR (Romanian National Television) antenna times.

Possibility to buy Notes airtime

(continued)

Different campaigns of finalists: online for Klaus Iohannis vs. traditional media campaign focused on spots and pseudoinventions in Victor Ponta’s case.; first round (‘the diaspora’s’) became main event of controversies in second round. General online campaigns.

2014

2016

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 19.1 (continued)

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

Use of polling and research techniques?

Yes, clear regulations in Financial Trust Guide (depending on the minimum wage in Romania’s economy).

Yes, clear regulations in Financial Trust Guide (depending on the minimum wage in Romania’s economy).

Campaign spending limits

Yes, not specified how they are set.

Yes, not specified how they are set.

Free airtime on public media

Yes

Public issue was about finalists’ agreement to participation in TV debates.

Possibility to buy Notes airtime

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References Act No. 208/2015 Regulations on the Elections to the Chamber of Members of Parliament and the Senate. Act No. 215/2001 on Local Public Administration. Act No. 33/2007 on the Organization and Conduct of the Elections for the European Parliament. Act No. 334/2006 on the Financing of the Activity of Political Parties and Election Campaigns. Act No. 393/2004 on the Status of Locally Elected Representatives. Act No. 67/2004 for the Election of Local Public Administration Authorities. Bardan, Alexandra. 2001. Marketing politic în România. Înainte și după 1989. București: Tritonic. Beciu, Camelia. 2000. Politica discursivă. Practici politice într-o campanie electorală. București: Polirom. ———. 2014. Dezbaterile electorale și rolul media în campania prezidențială din 2014 în România. Revista română de sociologie, serie nouă, anul XXVI (3–4): 253–278. Decision no. 592/2016 on the Rules for the Broadcasting of the Electoral Campaign in 2016 for the Election of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Decision No. 6/2012 on the Observance of the Procedure for Organizing and Holding the National Referendum on July 29th, 2012 for the Dismissal of the President of Romania, Mr. Traian Băsescu, and the Confirmation of Referendum Results. Free Romania. 2013. Sistemul politic prevăzut în noua Constituţie trebuie să fie coherent. Romania Libera. https://romanialibera.ro/politica/institutii/ parvulescu%2D%2Dsistemul-politic-prevazut-in-noua-constitutietrebuie-safie-coerent-301471. Accessed 16 Mar 2019. Momoc, Antonio. 2010. Online Negative Campaign in the 2004 Romanian Presidential Elections. Styles of Communication 2 (1): 89–99. Păuș, Viorica, and Adriana Ștefănel. 2016. Populist Dichotomy We Versus They and the Outburst of Hate Speech i2.0 in the Electoral Campaign. IJCCSEC 5 (1): 52–59. Preda, Cristian. 2013. Partide, voturi și mandate la alegerile din România (1990– 2012). Studia Politica: Romanian Political Science Review 13 (1): 27–110. Rovența-Frumușani, Daniela, and Adriana Ștefănel. 2015. Couleurs «parlées» et couleurs «affichées» dans l’espace public roumain après 1989. Communication 33: 1. Teodorescu, Bogdan. 2005. Marketingul electoral. In Cea mai bună dintre lumile posibile. Marketingul politic în România 1990–2005, ed. Bogdan Teodorescu, Dorina Guțu, and Radu Enache, 35–118. Comunicare.ro: Bucureşti. Tudor, Sorin. 2008. Politica 2.0  – politica marketingului politic. Bucureşti: Ed. Tritonic.

CHAPTER 20

Slovenia Alenka Krašovec and Tomaž Deželan

Country Overview The first step in the democratisation process, the liberalisation stage, was made in the mid-1980s, and in December 1989 parliament legalised political pluralism, spelling out new regulations for elections. The first multi-­ party elections took place in April 1990, and MPs were elected to three representative bodies, each having eighty members, set by the Constitution of Yugoslavia in 1974. In 1992, the first elections to the National Assembly (lower house) with ninety MPs (two of them are representatives of the Italian and Hungarian minorities) and a four-year mandate were held. There is also the upper chamber, the National Council, as a representative body of functional and local interests with forty MPs elected indirectly. The electoral system has undergone only minor changes. A proportional representation electoral system is employed, while the parliamentary threshold has changed—from 2.5 per cent in 1990, to three seats (from 3.3 to 3.4 per cent) in the 1992–2000 period, to four per cent starting in 2000. The number of parties and independent candidates competing in elections has varied substantially, from twenty-five candidate lists and a A. Krašovec • T. Deželan (*) University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_20

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number of independent candidates in 1992 to seventeen lists in the 2008 and 2014 elections (State Electoral Commission 2019). Slovenia’s party system was relatively stable for more than a decade after the transition (Lewis 2001; Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015). The disintegration of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (LDS), the leading governmental party in the 1992–2004 period, and the economic and financial crisis which hit Slovenia badly in 2009, led to greater instability. Early elections were held in 2011, 2014, and 2018, and these elections were characterised by high volatility (Krašovec and Johannsen 2016) with very successful new parties (two even won elections: in 2011, the List of Zoran Janković—Positive Slovenia [LZJ-PS], and in 2014, the Party of Miro Cerar [SMC]). Some successful parliamentary newcomers were established just months or even weeks before the elections, recording (very) good electoral success but not passing the parliamentary threshold in the next elections (see Krašovec and Haughton 2014; Haughton and Deegan-Krause 2015). If, at the beginning of the 1990s, some political parties originated from the old sociopolitical organisations of the socialist regime and can be described as established or transformed parties, such as LDS and the Social Democrats (SD), there were also newly established parties like the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), the Christian Democrats (SKD), the Slovenian Peoples’ Party (SLS), and later also New Slovenia (NSi). Some parties from both of these groups, despite having undergone ideological and organisational changes as well as (several) names, have also lately been relevant parties. Since the 2011 electoral campaign, another cycle of establishing successful new parties has been evident and a common characteristic is that in the first elections in which they participated, they competed under the name of their founding fathers/mothers—LZJ-PS, Civic List of Gregor Virant (DLGV), SMC, Alliance of Alenka Bratušek (ZaAB), List of Marjan Šarec (LMŠ)—indicating a clear personalisation trend which was already evident within the main political powerhouses (for example, Janez Drnovšek’s LDS, Janez Janša’s SDS, and Borut Pahor’s SD) but was also on the rise with the elevated relevance of social media in political marketing (see Deželan et al. 2018). In terms of cleavages, all parliamentary parties in the 1990s advocated similar social democratic socioeconomic policies (Stanojević and Krašovec 2011; Fink-Hafner 2012) and only with the 2004 elections did the saliency of economic cleavage become more evident. In contrast, the progressive-­ authoritarian cleavage has been continually more evident, and has

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f­requently been interwoven with other cleavages, for instance: centre– periphery, state–church, urban–rural, modernism–traditionalism, and communism–anticommunism (Fink-Hafner 2012).

Legal Framework Already in 1989, the Law on Elections in the Assemblies had swiftly regulated the legal financial resources of electoral campaigns and placed a limit on the contributions of individuals and companies; however, there was no expenditure limit set. This was introduced by the Law on Electoral Campaigns passed in 1994 (30 SIT, approximately 0.12 EUR, per voter, which doubled in 1997) and later in the Law on Electoral and Referenda Campaigns passed in 2007 (0.40 EUR per vote), but few changes to the law were additionally made (e.g. in the 2018 parliamentary elections the expenditure limit was 685,070.40 EUR). For the electoral campaign, the same financial resources used for party funding are allowed (see Krašovec 2018). However, it should be noted that since 2013 contributions from companies are not allowed, while individuals can still contribute up to ten average monthly salaries in Slovenia. In the case of electoral campaign funding, transfers from ‘ordinary’ party accounts to special electoral accounts (which are obliged) have also recently been formally allowed, despite this being the de facto practice since the beginning of political pluralism in Slovenia. As the data reveals, such transfers are the most important financial source of the campaign, except among new parties (Krašovec 2000; Court of Auditors 2011, 2014). Organisers must also submit reports on financial sources as well as campaign expenditures to the Court of Auditors (a supervisory body), and since 2013 to the Agency for Public Legal Records and Related Services as well in order to assure greater transparency. Since 1994 the electoral campaign formally starts thirty days prior to elections and campaign silence is assured since the campaign must end twenty-four hours prior to elections. There were some discussions on publishing poll results which eventually led to a change. Until 2013 publishing poll results was not allowed seven days prior to elections, and since then it is not allowed twenty-four hours prior to elections. However, particularly with the rise in relevance of new media, this provision is increasingly contested. During an electoral campaign, parties have the possibility of accessing mass media, and television is especially important. The Law on Radio and

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Television of Slovenia states that candidates and parties have the right to payment-free airtime in the form of self-presentations and debates among candidates or party representatives (Krašovec and Haughton 2011), but mostly the latter form of payment-free access to public television and radio has been used recently. On the other hand, on private/commercial television and radio stations it is completely up to them to decide on parties’ access to television debates and presentations.

Historical Overview of Campaigns One of the important questions is if some of the campaign tools mentioned by Norris’s (2002) typology or Farrell’s (1996) discussion on the professionalisation of campaigns were used to a large extent. What Maksuti (2018, 284–285) found, based on an analysis of reports on campaign funding, is that in the 2004–2014 period parties on average spent the biggest share (thirty-four per cent) of their campaign budget on advertisements in mass media, followed by expenditures for printing and delivering campaign materials (on average approximately twenty-five per cent of their budget), and printing and displaying posters and billboards (on average twenty-two per cent of their budget). Posters have been an integral part of all campaigns and, until the mid-­ 2000s, they were one of the most used campaign tools. Since then they have lost much prominence, although it is still hard to imagine any party competing in elections without relying on them as well (Deželan and Maksuti 2012). Given that party membership and identification are not high (Krašovec 2000; Toš et al. 2009; Toš 2012; van Biezen et al. 2012), it is hard to talk about big party/public meetings or rallies, but the organisation of these events have been an integral part of campaigning, occasionally also in combination with music concerts and other culinary events related to cultural heritage. Still, it looks like political actors rely less and less on them and primarily use them to attract television support and presence on social media. Personal contact of candidates with voters, however, has been exposed by parties themselves as a very important way of contacting voters (Maksuti 2018). However, if in the prior-2004 period vans and cars were used mostly in this regard, the 2004 electoral campaign popularised buses (Deželan 2005); more recently cycling events and walks have been employed. However, it must be clear that the main purpose of these events is to attract media attention. Despite someone, given the proportional representation electoral system, not maybe expecting high usage of

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door-to-door campaigning, this form of campaign activity has also been used, mostly in electoral districts where media exposure and direct communication channels between politicians and constituents virtually do not exist. Nevertheless, rather than facilitating direct contact, political actors mostly opt for the distribution of leaflets in post boxes and street distribution of leaflets by party youth or volunteers. As a result, due also to the fact that political competitors do not want to be portrayed as ‘big spenders’, campaigns in Slovenia can be described as labour-intensive (see Farrell 1996), particularly in the post-2008 crisis period. In terms of campaign professionalisation (see Farrell and Webb 2002), particularly when it comes to television, we can say that television campaigns also reflect capital-intensive campaigning (see Farrell 1996) with several clear elements of professionalisation. From the first democratic and multi-party elections in 1990, public television and radio (RTVSLO) have been preparing leaders’ debates where all parliamentary and non-­ parliamentary parties have an opportunity to participate; however, parliamentary parties are entitled to get more payment-free access to media. Private/commercial television stations, on the other hand, have usually granted such opportunities to selected parliamentary parties and to the biggest challengers to them—and, more recently, to newly established parties identified as key contenders. Two important changes can be detected regarding leaders’ debates: (1) Since the mid-1990s commercial television has become more influential than public television and, due to less regulation, also a trend-setter; and (2) leaders debates have evolved from informative into sensational and infotainment, particularly when we look at the biggest commercial television stations (Vreg 2001, 198). Although some experts (see Francetič 2005) believe these debates have offered a small amount of information to voters but a great opportunity for politicians to fight among themselves, debates are to some extent interesting and set the tone for campaigns. As Vreg (2001, 195) exposes, in 2000, television debates were crucial for fifteen per cent of voters and their decisions on electoral preferences, although sixty-five per cent of voters had already made their electoral choices more than a month prior (and before the official electoral campaign started) to the elections. Later, the share of voters who made their electoral choices prior to the campaign period decreased to fifty-five per cent (Zatler 2007, 49) and this trend has heavily endured. Television debates proved to be the central mechanism through which voters followed the campaign and acquired political information (Zatler 2007, 75). Television debates have been crucial in more

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recent elections as well. Several new parties were established just a few months or even weeks prior to elections, without having appropriate time to campaign at their disposal. As their message evolved primarily through television debates, they managed to record very good electoral results— two of them even won the race (PS in 2011, SMC in 2014). Although paid television ads have been an ever-present campaign tool, in the post-2008 crisis period, political parties decided to invest less money in campaigns (Krašovec 2000; Court of Auditors 2011, 2014; Maksuti 2018) which also translated in less paid television ads. Since the mid-1990s, the hiring of external advisers has also become a practice in Slovenia. If domestic external advisers have to some extent become integrated in the campaigns of some parties (Deželan et al. 2010), well-known foreign advisers have more sporadically been included into Slovenian campaigns. The trend started with Mitterand’s adviser (Jacques Seguela) providing consultancy to LDS, which was followed by a range of consultants who had previously worked for Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, etc. providing support to the main political parties. The relatively limited utilisation of a capital-intensive approach to campaigns and the sporadic use of foreign consultant services may be justified by a rigorous cap on campaign spending (less than 700,000 EUR in the last two decades) as well as the red numbers many mainstream political parties end up in. As a result, many of the main political parties decided to reorient their campaign strategies to even greater use of traditional tools and activities than in previous elections (Maksuti 2018). Thus, we may argue that Slovenia is witnessing a ‘re-traditionalisation’ trend in political campaigning. Use of the Internet and social media presents probably the most substantial change in campaigning in Slovenia. Slovenian political parties began with internet domain registration in 1995 and 1996 (Butala 2009); however, they started to use the Internet consistently in their campaigns in 2000 (Vreg 2001; Krnec 2002). Nevertheless, it was already clear at that time that the experience of the Slovenian political community with the Internet revealed ‘politics as usual’ (see Margolis and Resnick 2000) as the biggest and wealthiest parties dominate online space as they do offline. Nonetheless, most of the parties ‘jumped’ on the internet train as part of the ‘me too’ or ‘domino’ effect, and appropriated the Internet in their campaigns for predominantly hierarchical and one-sided communication, duplicating information from offline media sources and sharing it publicly (Oblak 2000). Some parties started to use the benefits of the so-called ‘Web 2.0’ as early as the 2008 elections, with SD frequently described as a

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front-runner due to its engagement of IT professionals and youth wing members in their version of Facebook, named Redbook. However, a substantial appropriation of Web 2.0 functionalities in electoral campaigning happened in 2011, but Slovenian-style. This meant that ICT tools started (and remain) utilised as supplementary information platforms and not a platform to, for example, segment voters and messages (Maksuti 2018, 234). This mode of appropriation of the web also has much to do with the fact that Slovenian parties tend to lack capacity in their strategic campaigning dimensions. Moreover, due to the high costs of population surveys, they rarely opt to analyse the market with robust data, relying more on secondary data sources, and they follow existing public opinion polls offering basic descriptive statistics. As a result, they mostly ‘fish in the same tank’ of undecided voters, a tank which is getting bigger and bigger with each election (up to forty-five per cent of voters who intend to vote a week before election day; see STA 2018), as well as preach to the converted in order to retain a solid support base. With web-based tools, this approach more or less remains unchanged. Rarely do parties take advantage of the analytics and segmentation techniques at their disposal when it comes to Web 2.0 due to limited internal capabilities and the sporadic commissioning of external consultants/professionals leading them to opt for ‘catch all’ messages. In line with budgetary limitations and a ‘do-it-yourself’ mindset, messages are also rarely framed outside the core team in the central party office and tested beyond the active membership/supporter base, if at all. As far as negative campaigning is concerned, many (e.g., Vreg 1992, 2001; Spahić 2000; Špiljak 2010; Maksuti 2018) argue that Slovenian political culture generally does not accommodate negative campaigning well. However, this does not mean that negative campaigning in Slovenia does not exist. Even though election posters of the DEMOS coalition (Democratic Opposition of Slovenia) for the 1990 elections were put forward—the first example of negative campaigning—negative campaigning indeed has not been a frequent phenomenon and has also mostly failed to fulfil the expectations of those conducting it (Spahić 2000; Špiljak 2010; Maksuti 2018). Populists, mostly the Slovenian National Party, were the only ones constantly applying and benefitting from it to a limited success throughout the period of independence. Initially, and to some degree they still are, posters were the main tool of negative campaigning (Spahić 2000; Špiljak 2010). A new phenomenon appeared in 2008. So-called ‘freelies’ (free of charge newspapers issued by private companies close to parties)

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presented an innovation in negative campaigning as these temporary newspapers issued only during an electoral campaign period openly slandered political opponents (Špiljak 2010, 41). Interestingly, paid television ads almost never contained negative messages (Špiljak 2010; Maksuti 2018). A common denominator of negative campaigning had been linked to the alleged communist past of individuals and parties (Spahić 2000; Špiljak 2010). It is framed under the umbrella terms ‘uncles from the background’ and ‘Murgle’ (denoting an affluent part of the capital city), which are coined and consistently used by right-wing elites and their supporters.

Recent Trends Television still dominates electoral campaigns and political actors try to sell vague policy packages in an increasingly personalised form (Deželan et al. 2018). However, this personalised tone, induced mainly by commercial television networks introducing elements of the Americanisation of political campaigning, is incrementally changing due to more and more relevant individual-level campaigning parallel to central party campaigning for the national elections. As a result, the main mode of campaigning is increasingly becoming an amalgamation of the still dominant (1) personalised, modern, and centrally-organised election campaigns resting on main party brands, and (2) a decentralised style of postmodern campaigning of numerous individual candidates running with a mix of mostly premodern campaign tools linked to some modern and postmodern ones (see Maksuti 2018). In essence, this translates into a campaign of the central party office revolving around the party leader and the main party powerhouses which try to get as much airtime and exposure in mainstream national (primarily television) media, and numerous campaigns at the electoral district level where individuals promote themselves with some party insignia in a very rudimentary fashion. With the rise of social media, though relevant in more or less the same way for both levels (that is, the prevalence of individualised messages promoting personal features and views of the candidate), individual-level campaigns started to differ rapidly from the central one and in most cases became only vaguely connected to it. That there is no ‘magic bullet’ when it comes to campaigning in national elections became very clear in the past three electoral races: 2011, 2014, and 2018. Linked to an increasing dealignment of voters with parties, the success of new political actors does not come as a surprise despite

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their limitations in terms of planning capabilities (shortage of time compared to established parties and general organisational capacity), where at some point everyone involved has to become a ‘jack of all trades’. However, what is surprising is that we cannot identify a common pattern of campaigning which can be linked with winners. Apart from the fact that most of them, primarily the last influential newcomer Marjan Šarec and his list LMŠ, rode a wave of political anti-establishment and the need to fundamentally revise the political game, it appears that political actors can end up on a winning side regardless of the combination of campaign tools they end up using, thus indicating an increasing instability in the electoral environment and, therefore, a nightmare for campaign teams (also see Maksuti 2018). With this in mind, we could still argue that electoral campaigns are becoming more and more professionalised, at least at the central level, where campaigns are increasingly centralised and supported by external experts and political consultants. Some of the parties did manage to decouple online and offline campaigns, primarily by using the online one more to approach and solidify their own support bases by significantly more radical and offensive messages, thus making social media a scene for the otherwise ‘untold’ (Deželan et al. 2018).

Conclusion We may identify several elements which are pivotal for the shape of political campaigns and which can determine campaigning in the future. In terms of the electoral system and the regulation of electoral campaigns, we may say that, mostly due to the absence of any concrete revisions, these areas appear to be a robust source of election campaigns. That being said, debates surrounding changes in the electoral system are constantly on the political agenda. However, probably the most resonating debate has been one focusing on campaign funding, primarily in relation to foreign funding, as the winning party in the last elections was accused of receiving foreign money to run their electoral campaign (money from persons close to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban). Second, voting behaviour, primarily because of its increasing volatility, proves to be a nightmare for political marketers as increasing voter dealignment with political parties creates huge pressures on them. Since the stakes are much higher now than decades ago—with up to half of the voting population up for grabs in the last week before the election—getting it right or wrong could mean the difference between running the ­government

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and being an insignificant force in the opposition. The current wave of anti-establishment politics on which many (populist) newcomers ride actually prevents established parties and their spin doctors from doing wonders regardless of the set of tools they have at their disposal and regardless of the structural and financial advantages they have over newcomers. The changing media landscape increasingly affects electoral campaigns more than we anticipated. Marketing approaches seen in the coverage of US elections, primarily by big media conglomerates, were transferred to the Slovenian political arena, primarily by commercial television networks. To be fair, public television, rather than resisting this trend, started mimicking the same approaches in its ambition to compete with them in the race for popularity numbers. As a result, campaigns, mainly due to the pivotal role television played in them, started to become more and more Americanised, appearing like beauty pageants, where the main contenders clash without any real substance, which even further increased political polarisation (see Table 20.1). The way political actors introduced and appropriated ICT also gave momentum to the process of polarisation, as online campaigning became much more confrontational, extreme, and bipolar. Although ICT tools failed to be appropriated as powerful postmodern campaigning tools, they nevertheless profoundly impacted the way campaigning is performed in Slovenia by revealing all the negative aspect which make so many citizens so disgusted with politics.

Socio-political chamber: PR system; 14 constituencies, each further divided into 3 to 7 districts, threshold 2.5%. PR system; 8 constituencies each further divided into 11 districts, threshold of 3 mandates (app. 3.3%). PR system; 8 constituencies each further divided into 11 districts, threshold 3 mandates (app. 3.3%). PR system; 8 constituencies each further divided into 11 districts, threshold 4%.

1990

2000

1996

1992

Electoral system

Year of election

High-level of personalisation, strong divide between old (or transformed) and new (‘so called spring’) parties. Divide between old (or transformed) and new (so called ‘spring’) parties.

Divide between old (or transformed) and new (so called ‘spring’) parties.

Divide between old (or transformed) and new (so called ‘spring’) parties.

Basic campaign characteristics

Table 20.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Slovenia

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Yes

Progressive values vs. Yes traditional values, need to surpass old communist vs. anti-communist divide.

Progressive values vs. traditional values.

Privatisation, divide No between old (or transformed) and new (so called ‘spring’) parties.

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Type of democratic No transition, future political system of the country.

Main campaign topics

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PR system; 8 constituencies each further divided into 11 districts, threshold 4%. PR system; 8 constituencies each further divided into 11 districts, threshold 4%.

PR system; 8 constituencies each further divided into 11 districts, threshold 4%.

PR system; 8 constituencies each further divided into 11 districts, threshold 4%.

PR system; 8 constituencies each further divided into 11 districts, threshold 4%.

2004

2011

2014

2018

2008

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 20.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Rejection of the old style Yes unethical political leadership and calls to introduce ‘new faces’, ethics, and morality in politics. Introduction of other way of Yes doing politics, new figures in politics.

Confrontation between ‘inefficient’ and ‘incapable’ political class and business-­ minded efficient leaders.

Duel between long-term leading governmental liberal democracy and conservatives. Duel between conservatives and social democrats.

Basic campaign characteristics

Changes in political system, ‘old vs. new faces’.

The end of the prolonged communist rule, privatization and economic liberal reforms. Progressive politics and libertarianism vs. conservatism, exclusion; economic liberalism vs. social democracy. Ideology vs. track record/result, ways of handling economic and fiscal crisis, divide on austerity measures. Privatisation, the imperative of ethical politics.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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Posters, ads in electronic and print media, leaflets. Posters, ads in electronic and print media, leaflets. Posters, ads in electronic and print media, leaflets.

Posters, ads in electronic and print media, leaflets, websites. Posters, ads in electronic and print media, leaflets, websites. Posters, leaflets, websites, social media. Posters, leaflets, websites, social media (Facebook, Twitter). Posters, leaflets, websites, social media (Facebook, Twitter). Posters, leaflets, websites, social media (Facebook, Twitter)

1990

2000

2018

2014

2011

2008

2004

1996

1992

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 20.1 (continued)

Rallies, TV and radio debates.

Rallies, TV and radio debates.

Rallies, TV and radio debates. Rallies, TV and radio debates.

Rallies, TV and radio debates.

Rallies, TV and radio debates.

Rallies, TV and radio debates. Rallies, TV and radio debates. Rallies, TV and radio debates.

Types of campaign activities

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Use of polling and research techniques?

Yes, 0.40 EUR per voter.

Yes, 0.40 EUR per voter.

Yes, 30 SIT (app. 0.12 EUR) per voter. Yes, 60 SIT (app. 0.24 EUR) per voter. Yes, 60 SIT (app. 0.24 EUR) per voter. Yes, 0.40 EUR per voter. Yes, 0.40 EUR per voter.

No

No

Campaign spending limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Free airtime Possibility on public to buy media airtime

Mobilisation via social media

Mobilisation via social media.

Mobilisation via ICT (SMS messages). Mobilisation via ICT (SMS messages). Mobilisation via social media. Mobilisation via social media.

Notes

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CHAPTER 21

Serbia Siniša Atlagić and Dušan Vučićević

Country Overview The breaking point of the ancient-regime and transition from a loosely decentralised socialist one-party system to a competitive authoritarian (Levitsky and Way 2010) multi-party regime in Serbia was the 1990 parliamentary elections in which the majority system was applied. The disjointed and fragmented opposition was routed by Milošević and his party due to organisational, financial, and personnel advantages it inherited from the League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) and elite majority imposition (Renwick 2010) of the majoritarian electoral system. Nevertheless, the majority electoral system was changed after the first elections and the 1992 Round Table Talks. It was done according to the elite-settlement model of electoral reform after the reform proportional system with a five percent threshold and closed electoral lists were introduced. For the 1992 and 1993 elections, Serbia was divided into nine large electoral districts. However, just three days before the 1997 elections were called, the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the successor of the Communist Party, again imposed a new electoral law and divided Serbia into twenty-nine S. Atlagić (*) • D. Vučićević University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_21

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small and medium-sized electoral districts. As a consequence, twelve opposition political parties boycotted parliamentary elections (Vučićević and Jovanović 2015, 101–102). Although parliamentary elections in 1992 and 1993 can be considered quite free, unequal access to media, finance, and state resources made it extremely difficult for the opposition to defeat Milošević and his party. The last major electoral reform happened after the fall of Milošević, before the 2000 parliamentary elections when Serbia was constituted as one at-large electoral district. Nevertheless, two major shifts in Serbia’s public opinion attitudes, party system, and even regime type, occurred after presidential elections and the electoral loss of the presidential incumbent. Those shifts— Milošević’s loss to Vojislav Koštunica, the candidate of the united Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), and Boris Tadić’s loss to Tomislav Nikolić, the leader of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS)—in public opinion hugely overlap with swings from a competitive authoritarian regime to an electoral democracy and back to a hybrid regime (Pavlović and Antonić 2007; Jovanović 2008; Orlović 2008; Vučićević 2010; Vladisavljević 2016; Vladisavljević 2019). Obviously, changes of the regime type also influenced campaigning, the legal framework, the conduct of ‘free and fair’ elections, as well as the party system. From its introduction in 1990 to the present, the party system in Serbia has been very chaotic, fragmented, and non-institutionalised. It swung back and forth from moderate to polarised pluralism with two dominant parties in two different periods: SPS (1990–2000) and SNS (2012–present). There are a few clear indicators of weak party system institutionalisation in Serbia, especially considering opposition parties frequently regroup and reposition themselves on the ideological spectrum, a weak intensity of party identification and a high degree of public distrust in the parties, MP party transfers, frequent splitting of existing parties and creation of new parties, and the consequential high electoral volatility (Вучићевић 2012). After the breakdown of communism, Serbia had eleven parliamentary and eleven presidential elections, as well as one election for president of Yugoslavia (2000). Although the September 2000 elections, boycotted by a large part of the Montenegrin parties and the public, were formally held for federal government positions, they represented a critical juncture in subsequent Serbian politics. During the nineties, the key political events which affected the political situation in Serbia were the Wars of Yugoslav Secession/Succession, international isolation, UN sanctions, and the trade embargo against former Yugoslavia, the economic crisis, the recession and

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rise in poverty, and the 1999 NATO bombing. After ‘The October 5 Revolution’ and the overthrow of Milošević, the focus changed towards economic and political liberalisation, the introduction of new democratic institutions, the EU integration process, and regional cooperation. Still, some inherited problems have been shaping the Serbian political and party scene even after 2000, for example, the extradition of war criminals to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) during the 2000s, the 2008 Kosovo unilateral declaration of independence, and subsequent and present disputes over Kosovo’s sovereignty. Kosovo and (or) EU issues in combination with the impact of the Great Recession on the Serbian economy induced the second massive shift in public opinion and facilitated the SNS victory in the 2012 general elections. That shift coincides with the slow and gradual re-authoritarianisation of the political scene in the last few years and the strengthening of a hybrid regime with the backing of the West (‘stabilitocracy’).

Legal Framework According to the Law on the Elections of Members of Parliament (Act No. 35/2000, and 57/2003), mass media and especially public media are obliged to ensure equal accessibility of information about all submitters of electoral lists. Two representatives of each public media (radio and television), the Serbian government, as well as parliamentary political parties shall mutually agree on the number and duration of public media broadcasts. Political parties and candidates are provided with free airtime in public media (Act No. 83/2014, 103/2015, and 108/2016). Commercial media are obliged to enable representation without discrimination (Act no. 83/2014, and 6/2016) and to guarantee equal technical, programme, and financial conditions for political advertisements to all electoral actors during a campaign (Act No. 55/2015, and 90/2017). The official campaign starts with the announcement of the election and ends two days before election day. Electoral promotion through mass media and public gatherings, as well as the publication of estimated electoral results, are forbidden forty-eight hours before election day until the closing of polling stations. Publishing poll results is also forbidden at the beginning of news programmes. Candidates and parties can finance their campaigns from private donations and are provided with state funding—0.07% of budgetary tax revenues (Act No. 43/2011, and 123/2014). Funds from public sources are

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allocated in two ways: twenty percent in equal amounts to all electoral lists who declared the use of public funds and eighty percent after elections according to the proportion of seats won. There is an annual limit for private donors (a private person can donate up to twenty average monthly salaries and private companies up to two hundred monthly salaries) but no overall limit on the amount collected or spent by parties or candidates. For the purpose of raising funds for election campaign financing, a political entity must open a separate account which may not be used for any other purposes. Parties and candidates are further required to submit reports on funds raised and spent to the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) within thirty days of the announcement of final results. Three keystone institutions in the Serbian electoral campaign legal framework have not been performing their duties fully. The ACA, formed in 2010, has been reluctant to completely use its investigative powers. The Regulatory Body of Electronic Media (REM), a successor of the Republic Broadcasting Agency formed in 2003, interpreted the existing legal framework narrowly, in a formalistic manner, not entitling it to exercise authority during an election campaign. And lastly, the Supervisory Board of the National Assembly (SB) was appointed by parliament only for the 2000 elections. Still, no matter how weak and fragile electoral institutions are, the current legal framework is better than during the Milošević era when the institutional setting was almost non-existent.

Historical Overview of Campaigns The general characteristics of electoral campaigns in Serbia in the early 1990s were determined by the main characteristic of the newly established multi-party system: the absolute dominance of one party. This influenced the manner in which electoral campaigns were carried out in terms of the organisation of party activities, election preparation, and the operation of the ground campaign. The Socialists’ electoral campaigns during the 1990s were only one aspect of this permanent campaign, and elections were only one among numerous actual occasions, from important internal and foreign political events, party congresses, spectacular celebrations of historic events, sport, and cultural manifestations, to war. In other words, the electoral campaigns of the dominant political party in Serbia in the beginning of the multi-party system were the peaks of the party’s long-­term propaganda. The Socialists were conducting complex, comprehensive campaigns resembling the Communist Party’s campaigns. These are campaigns of integration, which at that point in time insisted on national unity and

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homogenisation of the social tissue without being particularly segmented. At the same time, they are both leader and party, both ideological and programme campaigns. They are characterised by a strong personalisation of politics as a methodological principle of political persuasion and by building and subsequent solidification of the image of Milošević as the nation’s protector (Slavujević 2017, 42). The protection of state and national interest, that is, the protection of the territorial integrity of Serbia and of Serbs in other parts of the former Yugoslavia, created the thematic framework which the leading party was imposing in electoral campaigns until the mid-1990s, and which served as the means of homogenising society (Atlagić 2015, 191). In the second half of the 1990s, the focus of the Socialists’ campaigns shifted to economic-social topics. Differing from the Communists’ successor, other parties entered the multi-party system insufficiently organised with roughly articulated and heterogenic ideological and programme-wise positions. The Communists, or rather their successor, used this and took over a series of opposition programme stances, imposing themselves during the entire first decade of the multi-party system as the leader of a broad national movement. Besides their stances about the national issue, the Socialists took over some other general stances like advocating for a market economy, the development of democracy, a legal state, etc. Thus, they not only developed the so-called ‘sleeper effect’ (see Nimmo 1970, 171), but also created difficulties for opposition parties in their profiling and positioning in electoral campaigns. Therefore, the opposition did not have enough space for implementing a stand one’s ground strategy. Instead, opposition parties mostly opted for the borrowing issues strategy, positioning themselves around topics launched by the dominant party, but as its direct opposition. Thus, by confronting the dominant party, which positioned itself as the ‘party in the middle of the road’, one part of the opposition ‘slipped’ into extreme nationalism and another into the dream of democracy according to the Western pattern. Both of them, in the beginning of the multi-party system, conducted aggressive ideological campaigns discrediting the dominant party as the holder of unacceptable global ideological options and the last bastion of Bolshevism. The opposition parties soon reoriented to pragmatic-political and economic issues, however, again treating them in the context of the general thematic frameworks imposed by the dominant party.1 1  The general character of electoral topics in Serbia in the beginning of the multi-party system is also indicated by the results of (rarely) conducted research. Thus, the electoral campaign of 1990 devoted two-thirds of messages addressed to the citizenry to three issues:

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The relationship of political actors towards their own promotion in the Serbian electoral campaigns of the early multi-party system was based on a strategy of permanent media abuse. This did not mean only a negative and dirty campaign conducted by the Socialists against political opponents via state television and the most significant print media or their snubbing and expulsion from the public sphere (Milivojević 1999), but also the use of state propaganda for party purposes. Thus Milošević, who was also the party leader, together with all state officials and economic managers intensified the performance of regular activities during electoral campaigns, with reports of those activities filling the media. The most important media not only supported the regime parties but were themselves the permanent promoters of the regime (Milivojević and Matić 1993; Matić 2007, 2011). In addition, knowledge of the marketing possibilities for shaping reality was lacking. Namely, both the Socialists and the vast majority of the opposition started from political contents as given, with political persuasion coming post festum and being reduced to offering compelling presentations of their electoral portfolio. Engagement of campaign management experts who would both select and shape the electoral portfolio was not common for the majority of electoral participants during the 1990s. However, the first multi-party elections already showed indications of a profound change in carrying out electoral persuasion compared to the period of late communism, both in the ruling party and among the opposition. Already at the time, some local scientific institutions and foreign marketing agencies had made public opinion surveys and even created electoral campaign strategies for the needs of certain opposition political parties and movements. Local private public opinion research agencies and newly established marketing agencies started sporadically offering services to electoral participants in the mid-1990s. The latter did this mostly at the creative level of campaign organisation. Strategic-level campaign organisation was mostly undertaken by untrained election headquarters staff of the electoral participants, leading to an absurd situation where a campaign had videos, posters, and other campaign products which were technically correct but not based on a clear campaign strategy, precisely defined thematic frameworks, or target groups. This is the consequence of a largely nihilist relation towards public opinion research results during (1) state and national issues (27%), (2) perspectives of economic and social development (18%), and (3) development of democracy (30%) (Slavujević 2007, 111–114). The situation was not significantly different in the next campaign in 1992 (Slavujević 2007, 119).

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the 1990s. The ruling Socialists placed their hopes for electoral victory in the strength of party infrastructure and the popularity of Milošević, whereas the opposition, expecting problematic results in polls done through party newspapers, bet on the oratory qualities of their leaders when addressing citizens, usually in squares, and the so-called propaganda of the deed to bring about results (Slavujević 2017, 67–69). The year 2000 can be considered a groundbreaking year in the development of a marketing approach in Serbian electoral campaigns, and it coincides with the change of power, the removal of Milošević, and the shift of the country’s foreign political direction towards the West and the European Union. Since then, there has been almost no political party or candidate not using the services of public opinion research agencies and the marketing services of local and foreign agencies, the number of which was multiplying. In addition to the relation towards public opinion research results and involvement of campaign management experts, the development of marketing approaches in electoral campaigns in Serbia can also be observed in the sphere of change of the relationship towards the use of media and different promotion forms, which became standard after the presidential campaign of 2002. The official television presentation of parties and candidates as a form of promotion has also experienced a format-wise transformation after the year 2000. Instead of studio talk shows with a host with the possible inclusion of viewers into the programme, which was characteristic of the 1990s, the presentation of parties and candidates transformed into the broadcast of recorded party material such as television spots, leaders’ statements, inserts from ground campaigns, etc. or a combination of this with candidate interviews with a host in the studio. After 2000, the production of television ads increased enormously. Out of all the recorded spots in the Serbian multi-party system, which followed Western production trends in terms of quality, as much as seventy-six per cent were made from 2000 to 2016 (Slavujević 2017, 72). Since the 1980s, Serbian electoral campaigns have been transformed into television campaigns (Schulz 2011) as the importance of image in politics has increased (Louw 2010), particularly regarding electoral motivation factors (Atlagić 2007). The early twenty-first century in Serbia has produced a new type of politician: a celebrity politician, one who has learned how to use the potential of mass media and particularly of visual ones (Lou 2013, 151). The most important role in this process belongs to Boris Tadić, the

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Democratic Party (DS) leader and president of Serbia from 2004 to 2012, who has established new standards characterised by the frequent use of public opinion survey results and the creation of comprehensive strategies based thereupon. These campaigns used to include orchestrated advertising in all media as well as big, perfectly organised American-style rallies and intensive ground campaigns. With Tadić, according to Slavujević, Serbia entered a phase of idolatrous attitude towards marketing, jumping—within roughly fifteen years after the first multi-party elections—out of ‘marketing naturalism’ (2011, 286). The successor of the practice started by Tadić is Aleksandar Vučić, the leader of the SNS. The close victory of the SNS over Tadić’s DS in the parliamentary elections of 2012 was followed by landslides (with almost fifty per cent of the votes) won in the parliamentary elections of 2014 and 2016. The Serbian party scene is once again characterised by the existence of party hegemony. When its leader was appointed prime minister in 2014, the overall political marketing in the country reached its peak. In a difference from the early multi-party system whereby the dominant party used all available means of persuasion and manner of promotion with, however, insufficient knowledge of marketing and insufficient professional campaign management, we are now witnessing the same principle but elaborated professionally, in detail, and with the help of foreign marketing experts.

Recent Trends The same as both Milošević and Tadić, Vučić has been leading a permanent campaign since 2014, which included the above mentioned three parliamentary campaigns and the presidential campaign of 2017. These campaigns have been led under conditions of a general social crisis in the country. It is still an actual economic crisis and a crisis of political institutions, accompanied by constant uncertainty regarding the solution of the Kosovo issue. These campaigns have not had brand new topics, not even ones of broader importance in Europe, such as the migrant crisis. Generally observed, campaigns are mostly non-segmented, with a character which is rather leader than party, both rational and irrational. This is true as well for the electoral campaigns of the opposition parties, and it is determined by the character of the two key elements of the electoral portfolio: In the atmosphere of general uncertainty in which relatively frequent electoral cycles are carried out in Serbia, an emotional-affective relationship has been developed towards the personalities of party leaders. Second, upon

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the ideological transformation of the dominant party from extremely nationally oriented to an extremely pro-European party, all relevant parties in electoral campaigns run on the same topics and give similar promises in the spirit of the European future of the country. In that way, the rational choice of voters is missing (Slavujević and Atlagić 2015, 165–166). Due to the maximisation of positive publicity of the dominant party, the consequence of which is the ‘squeezing of opposition from the “core” of the public sphere’ (Malinova 2013, 117), formed primarily through television as the most credible media, the electoral activities of the opposition after 2012 have, to a significant measure, moved to the Internet and social networks, in which the number of users in Serbia is constantly rising.2 However, the dominant party is not lagging behind—quite the contrary. Attempting to orchestrate all available means and forms of promotion, all political parties and candidates in campaigns use the Internet (websites and social media) for the promotion of activities in the offline sphere—the presentation of field campaigns, announcements, rallies, invitations to join parties, recruitment of activists, donations, videos, posters, brochures, stickers, and other means of outdoor marketing, promotion of slogans, etc. The ‘movement’ to the Internet is also an explanation for the large production of videos in the 2016 campaigns and their rather seldom broadcasting on them television. When it comes to the political parties’ websites, important differences appear in their design, presented content, and updating frequency. Among the neglected possibilities, experts emphasise communication with visitors, publication of comments, building of forums or chat-services, and possibilities for communication with candidates, etc. (Вујановић 2017). Among social media, all parties and candidates use Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The ‘blooming’ of party activities on social media overlapped with the SNS’s arrival to power; it started to use a fully systemic approach and a high level of organisation towards these activities (Slavujević 2017, 260). With the possibility for anonymous inclusion of individuals into electoral campaigns and the use of fake identities, social networks turned out to not only be a useful means of promotion but an even better means of negative campaigning. They are popular channels for the exchange of 2  More than half of Serbia’s citizens are informed via television (fifty-five percent). Almost a third (thirty-one percent) of the population is informed through internet portals and social networks, while print media is the source of information for only 6.6 percent of citizens (Živanović 2017).

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messages, verbal confrontations of politicians, and comments about different events and actions, and therefore, a frequent source of content for the so-called traditional media and publicity. All this has significantly contributed to the intensification of the persuasive interaction of electoral participants since 2012. Together with the above-mentioned image as an electoral motivation factor, this is the second most important feature of contemporary electoral campaigns in Serbia.

Conclusion The key characteristics of numerous electoral campaigns in Serbia from the re-establishment of the multi-party system in 1990 until today point to the general conclusion that their case confirms the universal applicability of political marketing in contemporary societies. Some elements of so-­ called new politics, the syntagm which expresses profound changes in the manner of conducting politics, are permanent campaigning, personalisation of politics, dominant orientation in mass media-mediated politics, the engagement of specialised marketing, and public opinion research experts have been observed in Serbia since the very early 1990s. However, the breaking point, the beginning of a comprehensive marketing approach in conducting electoral campaigns, was the parliamentary elections of 2003. With an accelerated development of technology, total political marketing has been strengthened by the intensive use of the Internet and social media since 2012. Electoral campaigns in Serbia are led according to the Western pattern and they keep pace with regard to campaign products (Table  21.1). The professionalisation of electoral campaigns, which occurred in Serbia in a short period of time, contributed to the establishment of the persuasive function of the campaign and to the role of irrational determinants in electoral decision-making. If, in addition, one takes into account the weaknesses of the party system as well as the fact that, for the entire time since the first parliamentary elections, the institutions of the Serbian political system have been facing a crisis of legitimacy, a question can be asked about the effects of ‘grafting’ total marketing over political traditions which have thus far not been considered democratic. So too about the marketing approach and the prevailing overexposure in media, and the faster than before denuding of the flaws of poor politics and personalities of politicians with a deficit of leadership qualities. The answers to these questions might be offered in new quality literature on electoral campaigns in post-socialist societies, which in Serbia is still scarce.

List-PR, D’Hondt, 5% threshold, 29 electoral districts.

1997

1993

1992

TRS (two-­round Campaign with Yes system) characteristics of pre-modern campaigns, not professional (not based on the results of public opinion research) List-PR, with ad agencies, among Yes D’Hondt, 5% the most used tools were threshold, 9 direct contact with voters, electoral districts use of public address systems, official television presentation of parties, newspaper presentation of Yes parties, TV debates, TV commercials, posters, and leaflets.

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

1990

Basic campaign characteristics

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 21.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Serbia

Protection of state and national interests (including the interests of Serbs in other former Yugoslav republics/states), democratic transformation of society and alternation of power Protection of state and national interests (including the interests of Serbs in other former Yugoslav republics/states), democratic transformation of society and alternation of power Protection of state and national interests (including the interests of Serbs in other former Yugoslav republics/states), alternation of power, social issues—higher standard of living. Social issues—organising life under international economic sanctions against Yugoslavia, criticism of governing incompetence.

Main campaign topics

N/A

N/A

Yes

No

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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Electoral system

List-PR, D’Hondt, 5% threshold, at-large electoral district.

Year of election

2000

Table 21.1 (continued)

(The first) campaign completely based on marketing approach (including GOTV), official presentation of parties transformed into broadcasting of recorded party material, enormous production of TV commercials, intensive ground campaign.

Basic campaign characteristics

Yes

Issues Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

Preservation of territorial integrity and restoration of the country after NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, forming impression of unity in opposition coalition, spreading confidence in the certainty of electoral victory and changes in society.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

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Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

2016

Modern campaign with frequent use of public opinion survey results and creation of comprehensive strategies based thereupon, orchestrated advertising, perfectly organised American-style rallies, concerts, intensive ground campaigns, billboards, and party websites. Modern campaign with intensive usage of social media.

Basic campaign characteristics

Yes

Electoral system

2014

2012

2008

2007

2003

Year of election

Table 21.1 (continued)

Foreign

EU integration process, social issues—solution of problems caused by the economic crisis, criticism of government incompetence. Social issues—unemployment and a higher standard of living. Managerial capacity of the government as opposed to the incompetence of the representatives of the former government, criticism of government incompetence.

Yes

Yes

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

EU integration process (as a Yes pretext for all issues), social issues—higher standard of living. EU integration process (as a Yes pretext for all issues), Serbian national interest, EU integration process (as a Yes pretext for all issues), Serbian national interest and protection of territorial integrity—Kosovo issue.

Main campaign topics

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1997

1993

No

Use of polling and research techniques?

Rallies, canvassing, No concerts, door-to-door campaigning Rallies, door-toNo door canvassing Rallies, door-toNo door canvassing, chloroforming strategy.

Posters, leaflets, TV Rallies, door-tocommercials, door canvassing. newspaper ads, official presentations on public TV

1990

1992

Type of Types of campaign communication (ads activities and media)

Year of election

Table 21.1 (continued)

Yes

No

No

No

Campaign spending limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Free airtime on public media

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Possibility to buy airtime

(continued)

Chloroforming strategy—antielection campaign on part of the opposition.

Officially it was possible to buy airtime, but in practice it was difficult for opposition parties because the media was under the control of the ruling party

Notes

338  S. ATLAGIĆ AND D. VUČIĆEVIĆ

Posters, leaflets, billboards, TV commercials, radio commercials, newspaper ads, official presentations on public TV, telemarketing.

2000

Rallies, door-todoor canvassing, GOTV.

Type of Types of campaign communication (ads activities and media)

Year of election

Table 21.1 (continued)

Yes

Use of polling and research techniques? Yes

Campaign spending limits Yes

Free airtime on public media Yes

Possibility to buy airtime

(continued)

GOTV strategy by opposition parties— participation of volunteers and NGOs, previously, radio commercials were not used as a means of promotion in campaigns.

Notes

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Posters, leaflets, Rallies, door-tobillboards, TV door, canvassing commercials, newspaper ads, official presentations on public TV, websites, telemarketing. Posters, leaflets, TV commercials, newspaper ads, radio commercials, official presentations on public TV, websites, telemarketing, social media.

2003 2007

2012 2014 2016

2008

Type of Types of campaign communication (ads activities and media)

Year of election

Table 21.1 (continued)

Yes Yes Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Use of polling and research techniques?

Yes Yes Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Campaign spending limits

Yes Yes Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Free airtime on public media

Yes Yes Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Possibility to buy airtime

No threshold for ethnic minority lists from 2007 elections.

Notes

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Renwick, Alan. 2010. The Politics of Electoral Reform: Changing the Rules of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schulz, Winfried. 2011. Mediji u predizbornoj kampanji. In Menadžment političke komunikacije, ed. Ansgar Zerfaß and Miroljub Radojković, 85–159. Beograd: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Slavujević, Zoran. 2007. Izborne kampanje: Pohod na birače  – Slučaj Srbije od 1990. do 2007. godine. Beograd: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Fakultet političkih nauka and Institut društvenih nauka. ———. 2011. Dvadeset godina višestranačja u Srbiji: Od marketinškog nihilizma i primitivizma do totalnog marketinga i idolopoklonstva marketingu. In Partije i izbori u Srbiji – 20 godina, ed. Slaviša Orlović, 285–295. Beograd: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Fakultet političkih nauka. ———. 2017. Pohodi na birače u ime države i naroda: Izborne kampanje u Srbiji od 1990. do 2016. godine. Beograd: Univerzitet u Beogradu  – Fakultet političkih nauka. Slavujević, Zoran, and Siniša Atlagić. 2015. Vreme neispunjenih obećanja: Teme u izbornim kampanjama u Srbiji 1990–2014. Beograd: IP Dobar naslov. Vladisavljević, Nebojša. 2016. Competitive Authoritarianism and Popular Protest: Evidence from Serbia Under Milošević. International Political Science Review 37 (1): 36–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512114535450. ———. 2019. Media Discourse and the Quality of Democracy in Serbia After Milošević. Paper accepted for publication in Europe-Asia Studies. Vučićević, Dušan. 2010. Demokratizacija kroz izbore  – izborni autoritarizam u Srbiji. Politička revija 26: 1–28. ———. 2012. Uloga političkih partija u procesu konsolidacije demokratije u Srbiji. Politička revija 33: 31–64. Vučićević, Dušan, and Milan Jovanović. 2015. Reforma izbornog sistema u Srbiji: prepreke i perspektive. In Srpska politička misao (posebno izdanje), 87–119. Vujanović, Jovan. 2017. Uloga internet sajta u predstavljanju političkih partija na parlamentarnim izborima u Srbiji 2016. godine. MA diss., University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science, Belgrade. Živanović, Katarina. 2017. Više od polovine građana informiše se putem RTS I Pinka. The Danas, December 12. https://www.danas.rs/drustvo/ vise-od-polovine-gradjana-informise-se-putem-rts-i-pinka/.

CHAPTER 22

Summary for the Balkans Miloš Gregor

The Balkans is probably the most complicated region in this book for several reasons. First of all, it includes the highest number of countries, so the differences among some of them are quite substantial. At the same time, a large part of the region was affected by the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the ensuing violent conflicts, whether in the form of war between individual republics or individual ethnic groups, such as the Ten-­Day War for Slovenian independence (1991), the Croatian War of Independence (1991–1995), the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995), the short civil war in Albania (1997), or the insurgency in Macedonia (2000–2001). Other states experienced economic crises accompanied by hyperinflation (Bulgaria 1996–1997). Last but not least, there are many ethnic minorities in many countries (for instance, in Bosnia and Herzegovina) which often play a primary role in main cleavages and thus in the construction of the party system. The journey, therefore, to today’s political system, the legislation of elections and campaigns, and the very form of political communication was often not easy or direct. Many countries have changed their electoral system over the past thirty years (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania). M. Gregor (*) Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_22

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Some of them joined NATO (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Slovenia) or the European Union (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Slovenia), while others have not (yet). Today, the region is more stable than it was at the turn of the millennium; however, the years of war and conflict have had a substantial impact on the development of party competition and, moreover, are still often reflected in current political issues. In many countries, they have also slowed or delayed the development and professionalisation of electoral campaigns. However, even in the Balkans, we can observe elements which have been familiar to other regions of Europe in recent years, such as anti-establishment and right-­ wing populist entities, often reinforced by the migration crisis after 2014 (for example, MOST and Zivi zid in Croatia). The implementation of political campaign rules is monitored by state commissions in most countries. Similar to other regions, most countries have a defined start of the election campaign period (for example, twenty days before elections in North Macedonia, or thirty days before elections in Albania and Bulgaria) and electoral silence (twenty-four hours before elections in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, and Slovenia or forty-eight hours before elections in Serbia). The laws in Albania also say that the election day should be issued six months in advance so political parties have enough time to prepare their campaign strategies. Polls and surveys are prohibited from being published twenty-four hours before elections in Slovenia; five days before elections in Albania, Croatia, and North Macedonia; and seven days before elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The funding of electoral campaigns is usually treated both on the revenue side—that is, who and how much one can donate to a campaign—as well as on the expenditure side. In most countries, it must be done through an (transparent) election bank account. The maximum donation amount is normally defined as a multiplication of the minimum or average wage in a country (Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia). It is normal that legal entities can donate to parties and their campaigns as well; however, this is not the case for Slovenia, where this was outlawed from 2013 onwards. The maximum amount a party can spend on a campaign is most often defined in relation to the vote, in other words, the amount which can be spent on one vote (in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia, for instance). State funding is also quite common (Albania and Serbia). In Serbia, there is no cap on the total amount parties can spend on a campaign. In most countries, laws on financing electoral campaigns have been enacted for most of

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the reported period; however, in Croatia, for example, this was amended in 2011. And while transparency and fairness of electoral competition was a common motive for the adoption of campaign funding laws, in Romania it was a response to a close link between politics and the economic sphere, for which only opposition parties faced judgment. Access to the media was often a source of discrimination against the opposition in the early 1990s. However, today candidates have a space to present themselves and their programmes in each country. The differences are in the possibility to purchase extra space and in whether it is possible or not to have (paid or free) presentations on private television and radio. The most widespread is a model where candidates have free airtime and, at the same time, they can buy some additional air for election spots (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Northern Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia). Albania offers a specific arrangement whereby the space dedicated to the election coverage on public service media varies depending on the strength of a party. Bosnia and Herzegovina offers the opportunity for running parties to have two of their events covered in the news. In Bulgaria, the parties are legally guaranteed three electoral debates. Slovenia offers free airtime without the possibility of additional advertising on television or radio. In general, rather than electoral spots, leaders and candidates enjoy debates in the region. In many ways, however, the development of electoral campaigns has been more dynamic than it may look like from the legislation. The first years after the transition were characterised by extensions of communist period communication models more than the Americanisation and professionalisation of campaigning as it is known in Western democracies. This is the case especially for countries with experience of war or armed conflict. The presence of foreign organisations which helped to set up a whole political system was quite common (NED, NDI, and IRI1). However, they often helped parties with their campaigns as well. OSCE observation missions have played an important role in several countries. Political consultants began to appear in electoral campaigns a little later (1996  in Albania and Romania, for example, and Slovenia similarly). Billboards, posters, leaflets, and mainly rallies (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Romania, and Slovenia) were the most often used elements of election campaigns in the 1990s. In Bulgaria, the main communication 1  NED—National Endowment for Democracy, NDI—National Democratic Institute, IRI—International Republican Institute.

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channel at the turn of the millennium were party newspapers. In some countries lucky enough to avoid war or which were able to recover from war quickly, we can see the emergence of television debates, voting spots, the Internet, and social media in comparable timeframes to other regions (Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia). On the other hand, it is without any surprise that countries which have undergone war are usually characterised both by the later adaptation of the elements and strategies of electoral campaigns as well as the aftereffects of war in the main topics of the election campaign. Corruption and migration have also played a significant role in the region. Thanks to the sometimes not completely smooth transition, nostalgia for the past regime, or the presence of reformed communists (in Serbia, for instance), clientelism and corruption in the region have been around since the 1990s. However, they were not the main topics of electoral campaigns at the time. Later, corruption would become a main issue, for example, in the 2005 Albanian elections. Similarly, migration from the Middle East began to be projected (not only in electoral terms) after 2014 (Albania and others), and it is characteristic to have the presence of populists (Croatia, North Macedonia) and nationalism or nationalist parties (Bulgaria, Romania). Last but not least, the region has lately faced the problem of hate speech, fake news, bots, and trolls in online media outlets (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, and Serbia). Overall, the Balkans represent countries which are moving in diverse directions and which differ significantly from one another. With slight exaggeration, it is easier to find differences than similarities among them.

PART IV

Eastern Europe

CHAPTER 23

Characteristics of Eastern Europe Jan Holzer

An analysis of the three decades of developments which the countries of the former Soviet bloc have experienced since 1989 has presented, and in many respects continues to present, a major challenge for political science. Back in the 1990s, thanks to these events, the discipline was enriched by a wave of transitology studies. Descriptions of the processes of removing various post-totalitarian or authoritarian non-democratic regimes were accompanied by largely optimistic expectations that these transitions would result in more or less competitive, pluralist models of government. Paradoxically, the first truly consolidated regime in the post-Soviet region (leaving aside the Baltics) has been authoritarian in character, and popular support for President Alexander G. Lukashenko’s project continues to this day, lending credence to the argument that it faithfully embodies what the majority in Belarussian society see as a suitable conception for their nation-state. In place of an introduction: Russian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian post-Soviet politics in a comparative framework. J. Holzer (*) Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_23

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This contemporary suggestion that an authoritarian mentality can hold sway in the post-Soviet area was not entirely ignored by academe. For instance, it was reflected in a methodological discussion among transitologists during the early 1990s, in which the supporters of comparative and area-based approaches clashed with each other. ‘Democratisation studies’ then responded by placing an emphasis on the concept of consolidated democracy (Beyme 1999; Merkel 2010), announcing an end to transitology (Carothers 2002), and establishing the paradigm of hybrid regimes (Bogaards 2009; Levitsky and Way 2002; Schedler 2002, and many others). This paradigm was a watershed in the understanding of democracy as it rejected its minimalist, electoral form and expressed a preference for liberal democracy as the desired outcome of transition. This implied a radical change in the general typology of political regimes; one might say that a step was made from Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan (1996) towards Larry Diamond  (2002). This meant that the fragile, semi- or quasi-­ democracies in the post-Soviet area (but also elsewhere) faced a series of new tasks. The study of post-Soviet political systems and their institutional and structural characteristics simply resulted in the conviction that the efforts of the Russian, Ukrainian, and other political communities in the region were insufficient to qualify as liberal democracies. It was Michael McFaul’s (2005)  notion of transition from post-­ communism, which in the mid-2010s described a new hope in the development of post-Soviet politics in the sense that the time was now ripe for passing the ‘post-communism’ stage, whose elites formally accepted democratic institutions but used them merely as a façade behind which they continued their illiberal practices. This hope was embodied in the wave of ‘colour revolutions’ (as reflected upon by Beissinger 2006; Bunce and Wolchik 2006; D’Anieri 2006, and others) which, however, have taken place in only some post-Soviet countries, most importantly in Ukraine (first in Georgia, then in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan and, with a slight delay, in Moldova), while they did not occur at all in other countries (Belarus). And then there was a country which not only resisted the temptation of a colour revolution, but appraised the experiences of colour revolutions elsewhere as a warning against the purposeful and constant interference of Western liberal democracies and their elites in the post-Soviet area (Finkel and Brudnyi 2012). This interference was even supported theoretically by the concept of ‘democracy promotion’. Yes, I speak of Russia. During the 1990s, under President Boris N.  Yeltsin, Russia vacated its great-power position and seemed willing to adapt to numerous impulses coming from

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the West, both in terms of socio-economic transformation and foreign policy orientation. However, the rise of Vladimir V. Putin to the office of the president of the Russian Federation brought a change in Russia’s domestic and international priorities—though this did not happen immediately, and it is arguable whether it was bound to happen. And while hitherto the fall of the communist regime and the disintegration of the Soviet Union had been seen as the definitive defeat of this great ideological and political project of the twentieth century, in the early twenty-first century issues of geopolitical integrity and the independence of the post-­ Soviet region in particular made a comeback. Again, we need to accept the fact that the future of this ‘other Europe’ can be variously viewed—with emphasis placed on different, even contradictory perspectives. This becomes clearer when we realise how different the trajectories of the various new post-Soviet statehoods and their corresponding political communities have been. Certainly, after decades of the Soviet experiment, various political currents and camps, with their autochthonous mentalities, sociocultural preferences, interpretations of the past, and visions of the future, vigorously claimed the floor in these communities. And for all these countries, the collapse of Soviet power called for the necessity of coming to terms with issues and problems which were deemed ‘non-­ existent’ during the communist era. Despite this, an assessment of their evolutions does not provide much in terms of options for generalising. Focusing now on three of them—Russia, Moldova, and Ukraine—we see that they variously responded to the fundamental issue, to wit, how to harmonise state building and regime (democracy) building. There is no question that the Russian response has been the most authoritarian. Since the mid-2000s, Putin has successfully built a consolidated authoritarian government which relies on the post-­ideological mentality of the majority of the Russian political community and has been successful in terms of institutional restructuring and stabilising the country’s social policy—thanks to (so-far) sufficient financial resources derived from exporting Russia’s mineral wealth (see works by Vladimir Geľman; for instance Geľman 2015). Certainly, this does not mean that Putin’s regime does not occasionally experience tensions. In particular, when responding to the 2011–2012 electoral cycle, the Russian opposition demonstrated its capacity: It managed to mobilise a section of the public (especially in large cities), thus at least partially calling into question the view that there is presently no alternative to the elite ­currently holding power in Russia. However, more realistic interpretations of the contemporary wave of demonstrations

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evaluated them more soberly, and the subsequent developments have largely shown they were right to do so. However, it seems that Putin’s ambition is not limited to constructing a stable political model domestically. In recent years, his political project has issued into a bold vision of creating an alternative locus of power to Western liberal democracies—a true normative power—relying on non-­ liberal sources of legitimacy. Thus, the classic topics of political science, focused on the institutional, structural, or functional design of Russian politics, seem of secondary importance at the moment. Indeed, there is even a debate as to whether Putin’s willingness to export his political know-how to the ‘near abroad’ (see the conflict in Eastern Ukraine) is actually a manifestation of the effort to complete the much desired task of Russian state-building; Russia’s statehood remains uncertain, vacillating as it does between imperial, post-Soviet regional, and ‘national’ variants. Yes, Putin has created something which contemporary political scientists most often describe as modern authoritarianism (see Gerschewski 2013; Nisnevitch and Ryabov 2017, and others), but it is not entirely clear what the boundaries are within which he wants to run his project. The story of Moldova is ambiguous and characterised by uncertainty. The ability of its successive governments to undertake structural reform, adapt some of its law to the acquis communautaire, fight corruption, or limit the power of the oligarchs is consistently poor (despite the many proclamations), and one might well ask whether it is actually in the interests of the country’s elite to do so. This is framed by the country’s ambiguous foreign policy orientation, with both Russia and the European Union expending considerable effort to be able to interpret the situation in Moldova as testifying to their influence in the region. And as if that were not enough, there are two enclaves in the country—Transnistria and Gagauzia—which have declared separatist tendencies and over which the central power fails to exercise full control. The process of building a stable political environment is thus circumscribed by an incomplete prerequisite: a completed state-building project. And Ukraine? Comparative politics does not really know what to do about the post-1989 political developments in the country. For a certain time, the popular interpretation was that this was a case of an ever-­ extending transition; in effect, the argument was that the local elites were unable to finish the process of building a stable regime. This was typically followed by repeated disappointments from the results of democratising phenomena such as the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan—these fun-

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damentally influenced democratisation studies. Their various paradigms— the theory of modernisation (with an emphasis on socio-economic and institutional progress), transitology (with an emphasis on the rational behaviour of political actors), and democracy promotion (with a positive view of external actors’ input into the events)—have not really been able to explain Ukraine’s reality, or offer much in terms of its prospects for achieving a real democracy. This was then amplified by the shock of the events in Eastern Ukraine in the second half of the 2010s, which were marked by the partial intervention of a foreign international actor in Ukrainian territory, but above all confirmed the classic argument that Ukraine was a mentally divided country. At the end of the 2010s, Ukraine is a state on some of whose territory a war is being waged; one which is newly governed by a president with no political experience; and is on course for an early parliamentary election… The developments in the post-Soviet area therefore offer valuable material for all classical topics of political science, starting with the issue of nation-state and supra-national structure formation, to political regime classification and the more subtle institutional and procedural characteristics of the political communities therein. The chapters that follow are dedicated to one of these specific topics: election campaigning.

References Beissinger, Mark R. 2006. Promotion Democracy: Is Exporting Revolution a Constructive Strategy? Dissent 53 (1): 18–24. von Beyme, Klaus. 1999. Osteuropaforschung nach dem Systemwechsel. Der Paradigmawandel der ‘Transitologie’. Osteuropa 49 (3): 285–304. Bogaards, Matthijs. 2009. How to Classify Hybrid Regimes? Defective Democracy and Electoral Authoritarianism. Democratization 16 (2): 399–423. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13510340902777800. Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2006. International Diffusion and Post Communist Electoral Revolutions. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 39 (3): 283–304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2006.06.001. Carothers, Thomas. 2002. The End of the Transitions Paradigm. Journal of Democracy 13 (1): 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2002.0003. D’Anieri, Paul. 2006. Explaining the Success and Failure of Post-Communist Revolutions. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 39 (3): 331–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2006.06.002. Diamond, Larry. 2002. Thinking About Hybrid Regimes. Journal of Democracy 13 (2): 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2002.0025.

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Finkel, Evgeny, and Yitzhak M. Brudnyi. 2012. Russia and the Colour Revolutions. Democratization 19 (1): 15–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347. 2012.641297. Gel’man, Vladimir. 2015. Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing Post-Soviet Regime Changes. University of Pittsburgh Press. Gerschewski, Johannes. 2013. The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and Co-optation in Autocratic Regimes. Democratization 20 (1): 13–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2013.738860. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A.  Way. 2002. The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy 13 (2): 51–65. https://doi. org/10.1353/jod.2002.0026. Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP. McFaul, Michael. 2005. Transition from Postcommunism. Journal of Democracy 16 (3): 5–19. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2005.0049. Merkel, Wolfgang. 2010. Systemtransformation. Eine Einführung in die Theorie und Empirie der Transformationsforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Nisnevitch, Yulii A., and Andrey V. Ryabov. 2017. Modern Authoritarianism and Political Ideology. National Research University, working paper, 2–28. https:// wp.hse.ru/data/2017/02/13/1167140896/44PS2017.pdf. Accessed 20 June 2019. Schedler, Andreas. 2002. The Menu of Manipulation. Journal of Democracy 13 (2): 36–50. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2002.0031.

CHAPTER 24

Moldova Igor Munteanu, Otto Eibl, and Miloš Gregor

Country Overview Moldova has a unicameral parliament with 101 seats. According to international organisations like Freedom House (2019), however, the country is only ‘partially free’. Similarly, Reporters Without Borders (RsF 2019) indicates that media freedom has been sinking rapidly since 2013, mainly due to the increasing trends of semi-authoritarian governance, the concentration of media ownership, and severe limitations in judiciary independence. Since 1994, Moldova has held nine parliamentary elections, out of which four were early elections (1994, 2001, July 2009, and 2010). For most of the general elections, Moldova used a proportional system based on closed party lists within a single-national constituency; however, a mixed system was used in the last election. For several years, Moldova coined its reputation as a ‘pluralist oasis’ in the ex-Soviet space, largely expressed by free and competitive elections. However, unsettled territorial conflicts, exploiting various grievances and I. Munteanu (*) Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova O. Eibl • M. Gregor Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_24

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geopolitical stakes, shattered Moldova from the first day of its independence. In the period of 2001–2009, the Party of Communists (PCRM) won every single parliamentary election and attempted to awaken nostalgia for the Soviet past. The fragmentation of the liberal bloc helped consolidate its power. In 2009, Moldova experienced a ‘Twitter revolution’ (Morozov 2009), escalating conflicts between the conservative establishment and an impatient freedom-minded youth movement that soon inspired a power shift. The political party representation in the country is dynamic. From 1994 to 2019, there were three to five subjects (and three independents after the 2019 elections) represented in parliament. In the 1994 elections, the Democratic Agrarian Party (PDAM) gained a clear majority while another three subjects were represented in parliament. Except for the elections in 1994, the Communists have always been represented. Besides them, there have usually been electoral blocs of centre-left parties (the Braghis Alliance, consisting of six parties in 2001; Electoral Bloc Democratic Moldova in 2005; and Our Moldova Alliance in 2009) or the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) gaining seats in elections. Since 2009, there has been a decrease of support for PCRM while PSRM has been getting stronger. The third group of parties represent liberal and democratic parties or alliances, such as the Christian-­ Democratic People’s Party (PPCD)—in every election since 2001 except the April elections of 2009—and the Liberal Party (PL) and the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM)—from 2009 to 2014. In autumn 2009, four parties—two liberal parties, the Democratic Party (PDM), and Our Moldova Alliance (AMN)—agreed to create the Alliance for European Integration which was able to force the Communists into opposition. As a successor to this alliance, a pro-European coalition was established in 2013. After pushing the Communists into opposition, Moldova became a more pro-Western state; however, it has still had to deal with massive corruption, a clash between pro-Western and pro-Russian attitudes, and political/governmental instability.

Legal Framework Most rules on campaigning are addressed in Articles 45–47 and 64, while parliamentary elections in general are regulated by Articles 72–94 of the Electoral Code (1997). Elections are supervised and organised by the

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Central Election Committee (CEC), which is vested with the authority to supervise and control the financing of political parties. Candidates can register thirty to sixty days before the elections. The law stresses fairness and equality. All candidates should enjoy equal access to mass media, equal opportunities for technical and material support, and electoral campaign funding. National broadcasters are obliged to organise public debates and shall provide the candidates with five minutes of television and ten minutes of radio airtime to present their electoral programmes and inform voters. Beyond that, public broadcasters allot one-minute of airtime daily for candidates’ spots. Parties and candidates are also allowed to buy airtime in the media; however, it shall not exceed two minutes daily for each media outlet. All advertisement and campaign materials must include the name of the candidate, the date of its publication, its circulation, and the name of the printing house. Paid electoral advertising should be marked with ‘election’. Online and mobile electoral advertising must abide by the same rules as electoral advertising in written media. It is forbidden to disseminate campaign materials one day before and on the day of the election. On election day, the media shall not publish any polls, results of voter surveys, or even estimates until polling stations close. Publishing opinion polls is allowed up to five days before the election. It is not permitted to use images of Moldovan state institutions, public authorities, or even the combination of colours and/or sounds associated with national symbols in electoral advertising. The same goes for using pictures of historical personalities and for using the symbols of other states or international organisations. The financing of political parties is regulated by the constitution and other laws, including the Electoral Code, the Law on Political Parties (2007), etc. Since 1994, election rules on this topic have changed in order to increase accountability and transparency. In 2007, the concept of ‘public funding’ was introduced to oversee party expenditures and revenue sources, but the chapter on political financing was not effectively used until 2014. In theory, public funding should keep parties from illicit funding or ‘hijacking’ by extremely wealthy financiers. Still, independent reports show a lack of compliance with existing laws once it became enforced by regulatory agencies (Promo-Lex 2013). In 2018, stricter rules on cash donations by individuals were introduced. The law stipulated a wide range of legal sponsors to parties (companies and private entities) who were allowed to run campaigns, own media outlets and printing houses, raise contributions from party

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s­upporters and generate revenue by selling their printouts and carrying party symbols. Since 2019, a person can donate to one or more political parties up to three averages salaries in cash per year, or more via bank operations (Law No. 78/2018). Campaign spending limits for the 2019 parliamentary elections were established at a 50,000 Moldovan Leu (MDL) maximum for parties (approximately 2500 EUR) and 10,000 MDL (approximately 500 EUR) for individual candidates. The funding of political parties from non-profit and charitable organisations is prohibited as well as donations from abroad.

Historical Overview of Campaigns In Moldova, most of the campaigns are perceived as low key as parties rely on traditional tools and methods like door-to-door canvassing, rallies, and meetings. The first elections to the national parliament after the declaration of independence1 took place in February 1994. The whole election process in Moldova has been enriched by substantive support received from the United States, with the International Foundation for Election Systems opening a country office with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Several political foundations from Europe (for example, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Hanns Seidel Foundation, and Friedrich Naumann Foundation) and the United States (National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute) also provided targeted support to political parties. European foundations focused mostly on political education or training future MPs, while American institutes provided political communication trainings and organised workshops on effective campaigning and party management. In their campaigns, political parties focused mainly on foreign policy issues. We can basically speak about two blocs of parties. On one side, there was the pro-Russian PDAM represented by candidates belonging to the former Soviet regime (for example, resident Mircea Snegur was perceived as an informal leader of the party) and PSRM. Both parties sought a close relationship with the Russian Federation. On the other side, there 1  Previous elections were held in February 1990 when Moldova was still a part of the USSR.  In 1991, the Supreme Soviet was renamed Parliament and three months later Moldova declared independence.

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was Bloc of Peasants and Intellectuals (BTI) and the Alliance of the Christian Democratic Popular Front (AFPCD), who favoured reunification with Romania (IPU 1994). The elections were won by PDAM (43.18% and 56 seats), followed by PSRM and the Unity Movement (MUE) with 22% of votes and 28 seats. BTI gained 9.21% of votes (11 seats) and AFPCD ended up with 7.53% votes (9 seats). The government was built on the cooperation of PDAM and PSRM. In the next election,2 which was held in 1998, the governing parties unsuccessfully faced a steep rise in the popularity of a rejuvenated PCRM, which was led by Vladimir Voronin, the 1996 presidential candidate and a former minister of interior in the USSR. The return of the Communists restored a debate on a state-planned and centralised economy which was, besides the need for close political and military ties with the Russian Federation, the main issue in their campaign. The contestants of PCRM, the Democratic Convention of Moldova (CDM), For a Democratic and Prosperous Moldova (PMDP), and the Party of Democratic Forces (PFD) were more Western-oriented and offered voters the introduction of more welfare programmes and cooperation with both Russia and the West (IPU 1998). Overall, the campaign was calm; however, foreign observers noted some cases of inflammatory language used against contestants, and there was a case when a candidate was compared to Hitler and Stalin. An interesting fact is that the minister of education allowed the use of school buildings as campaign venues (when there were no classes). This helped parties to spread their messages, especially in rural areas where schools are often the only place where meetings can be held (OSCE 1998). Although PCRM won the election and gained forty seats, they were not able to form a government. It was the non-communist parties—CDM (26 seats), PMDP (24 seats), and PFD (11 seats)—which formed the Alliance for Democracy and Reforms (ADR) and, finally, the new government. It did not last until 2002, however. The first signs of division appeared in 1998, and in 1999, PPCD, part of CDM, left the Alliance. Moreover, 1998 showed plenty of political opportunities to challenge the incumbent government through the challenges of the Russian crisis, spreading its malign effects on Moldovan exporters. Some of PMDM’s MPs defected from the party and the government lost the majority in parliament. However, the reason for calling another early election was the inability of the body to elect the next president. On 5 July 2000, ­parliament 2

 Before the election, the number of parliamentary seats was reduced to 101.

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agreed on an amendment to the constitution that turned the so-far semipresidential system into a parliamentary form of governance. In the 2001 early elections, only three political formations were successful. Thanks to the high share of lost votes (28.33%), PCRM gained seventy-one mandates and won the election. The second place result was achieved by the Braghis Alliance (nineteen mandates) and PPCD (eleven mandates). After the victory, the leader of PCRM, Vladimir Voronin, announced that he would call a referendum in which people should decide whether or not to join a union with Belarus and Russia. Voronin also became president of Moldova later on. The 2001 campaign was again low-­ key and did not attract much attention from voters. However, it thrived on negative campaigning and aggressive rhetoric. Only parties of the former ADR refrained from attacking one another and they focused on criticising previous governing parties: PCRM, the Braghis Alliance, and PPCD.  PPCD published ‘Black Book of Corruption’ where it accused politicians from other parties of illegal activities (OSCE 2001). The Communists were the main beneficiaries of this situation. In the campaign, they relied on ‘old-school’ techniques, such as door-to-door canvassing, and used Soviet nostalgia and populist promises. Another issue discussed in the campaign was who would become the next president (Voronin vs. Lucinschi) (IPU 2001). In the next general elections in 2005, PCRM came out weaker. Although they still gained the majority of seats (56), they had to form a broad coalition in order to secure the re-election of Voronin as president. Another two political bodies which entered the parliament were the Electoral Bloc Democratic Moldova3 (BDM, 34 seats) and PPCD (11 seats)  (IPU 2005). Foreign observers reported that PCRM’s campaign was unfair as it included police harassment of the opposition, manipulation of state media (pro-PCRM biased), coercion, pressure on public employers and university students to support their campaign, and abuse of state funds (Freedom House 2005). In 2005, negative campaigning was used as well, especially on television where negative ads were spotted.4

3  It was formed by three political parties: Our Moldova Alliance, the Democratic Party of Moldova, and the Social Liberal Party. 4  An interesting case was a highly negative nine-minute spot against the PPCD leader, which was aired on behalf of four independent candidates who had pooled their free airtime for that purpose.

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In 2007, the Communists attempted to further limit the potential inroads of its opponents by changing the election rules. Thus, they attempted to abolish pre-election blocks, ban the participation of multiple citizenship holders for official state positions, increase the turn out threshold for the validation of election results, and many other changes to the Election Code that was just the opposite of the joint Opinion of the Venice Commission and OSCE released to Moldova. The next parliamentary elections were held on 4 April 2009. In that campaign, traditional tools were used. Parties again relied on door-to-­ door canvassing, posters, and billboards and major campaign events took place in the capital two weeks before the election day. PCRM reminded voters of all the success they had achieved during their time in power, while opposition parties criticised them for being corrupt and mismanaged. Part of their rhetoric also included using anti-communist appeals. This time, campaign posters and even offices of contestants were vandalised, removed, or destroyed and opposition party meetings and rallies were interfered with and disturbed by organised groups. There were also reports from opposition parties that police were involved in their activities, such as stopping buses with party supporters from attending rallies. Months before the election, criminal and tax investigations were launched against some opposition candidates. And like during the 2005 elections, public employees and students were prompted to attend PCRM meetings. Moreover, some employers pressured their employees to cease their candidacies or participation in the campaign or face losing their jobs (OSCE 2009a). All parties promised to secure new jobs, increase wages and pensions, invite foreign investors, fight corruption, and modernise the country in general. All major parties also stressed the need for more intense integration with the European Union; whereas PCRM was against joining NATO, the other parties pledged to seek membership (IPU 2009a). Overall, after a rather aggressive campaign marked by heavy misuse of administrative resources, the intimidation of opposition parties, media censorship, and fabricated files against political opponents, PCRM won sixty mandates out of 101, missing only by one vote to be able to elect the new president without any the support of another party. They were followed by PL and PLDM (both gaining 15 seats) and AMN (11 seats). After the results were published, initially peaceful (6 April) but later (7 April) violent street protests demanding new elections broke out in the capital (e-Democracy 2009). In the end, new elections in 2009 were

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indeed held; however, the reason was not the protests but the inability of parliament to elect a new president. As we could expect, the campaign was polarising, negative, and full of emotions and mutual accusations regarding the outbreak of violence in April. The parties did not focus on any substantial issue. Their manifestos were practically missing in the public debate, but they were almost the same as the previous few months. Most of the parties relied again on door-­ to-­door canvassing, party meetings and rallies, and posters. Some of them used billboards as well. The most visible campaigns were those of PPCD and AMN.  PCRM campaigned under the slogan ‘Let’s defend our Fatherland’ and at its meetings screened a movie called Attack on Moldova that painted opposition parties and Romania as the architects of the 7 April events. In return, AMN produced its own movie and asked voters to get rid of the Communists under the slogan ‘Let’s save the Fatherland from Communists!’ The only party that openly called for consensus and peace was PDM which campaigned under the slogan ‘The political war must stop!’ This time, PCRM received forty-eight seats and the opposition was able to establish the governing coalition Alliance for European Integration (AEI)5 (OSCE 2009b; IPU 2009b). However, the parliament was still not able to elect a new president in late 2009 and therefore, the acting president had to dissolve it and call for a new election in 2010. The campaign for this election was peaceful and free from any abuse from police or other authorities. Parties relied on traditional campaign tools and techniques, and the campaign was low-key again. However, the parties and candidates started using the Internet (including social networks) and, in the capital, several electronic billboards were deployed. Most parties targeted young voters, organising a series of concerts, discotheques, and other events to appeal to the youth (IPU 2010; OSCE 2010). Main political rivals labelled each other as being under the influence of foreign powers (pro-Russian, pro-Romanian, pro-European), and tensions also rose among AEI parties which ran separately in these elections. PCRM won the elections (42 seats) again; however, the governing coalition was formed with AEI (59 seats). In consequence of the unchanged distribution of power, parliament was still unable to elect a new president.

5   In 2010, the Alliance cooperated without AMN, which no longer crossed the threshold.

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This time, however, the highest court ruled that the government could remain in place until the next general election (IPU 2010; OSCE 2010). After the 2014 elections, five parties gained seats in parliament. Although the pro-EU coalition weakened, it was still able to hold its position. A parliamentary majority was set up by PLDM (23 seats), PDM (19 seats), and PL (13 seats), while the opposition included PCRM (21 seats) and PSRM (25 seats). What differentiates these two camps from each other is their preferred foreign policy. While PCRM and PSRM are open to tightening the relationship with the Russian Federation, the rest of the parties are far more EU-oriented. This cleavage naturally resonated in campaigns in which parties used mainly posters and billboards and in regions in which they relied on meetings with voters. Smaller parties and independent candidates focused on specific issues of law and order, ecology, and human rights (OSCE 2014). In 2017, the Election Code was amended to introduce a mixed election system: fifty-one MPs were elected from single-member constituencies and fifty by proportional representation in a nationwide constituency (with various thresholds for different types of lists). The first election organised by this new system was the February 2019 election which was won by PSRM (35 seats). They were followed by the ACUM Electoral Bloc6 (26 seats), and the Democratic Party (30 seats). Three independent candidates also succeeded in the election. A slight change was made in the rules regulating campaigning in that campaign activities were allowed from the day after the candidate registration deadline (before the change, some parties and candidates has started earlier than others). There was also no official electoral silence, meaning that campaigns lasted until the very last moment. The campaign was competitive and well-visible. Most contestants relied on smaller meetings with voters and most campaign communication was secured by traditional means—offline and online, including social networks. The main campaign issues focused on socio-economic topics such as employment, social services, emigration, corruption, and so on. Geopolitical issues were discussed significantly less; however they still played an important role in the campaign communication of some parties (PSRM) (OSCE 2019). During the campaign, there were some complaints about vote buying through the provision of gifts and goods (for example, shopping discount 6  The bloc consisted of the Dignity and Truth Platform Party, and the Party of Action and Solidarity.

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cards offered the Şor Party in exchange for personal data). Abusing state resources and pressuring public employees to attend campaign events during work hours were employed again by PDM and PSRM.

Recent Trends Since 2015, several groups of civil society activists challenged national authorities to recover the heist of the century, arrest the culprits, and sue them for corruption. Two parties running in the 2019 election emerged from street protest actions. Thus, big rallies were instrumental during 2015–2018 for some of these groups to gain visibility and popularity (Journal MD 27/2/2015), for example, the Dignity and Truth Platform Party (PPDA) led by Andrei Nastase and former Minister of Education Maia Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS). As the costs for television campaigning skyrocketed, wealthy parties and candidates have had a clear advantage. Smaller and not-so-wealthy parties and candidates rely merely on fieldwork. In this regard, social media plays a noticeable role in conveying political messages in Moldova. At the same time, especially on Facebook, we witnessed numerous rogue attempts to influence the election outcome. At least some of the candidates enjoy endorsements from foreign leaders. For instance, Igor Dodon, the freshly elected president of Moldova, medially enjoyed (and profited from) his visit with Vladimir Putin, where he hardly missed a chance of being in the company of the Russian leader, pursuing an image transfer by associating himself with one of the world’s most powerful foreign leaders (Locoman 2017). Similarly, Ilan Shor, a controversial and pro-Russian businessman, was endorsed by foreign politicians as well (European Parliament members Fulvio Martusciello from Italy, Barbara Kappel from Austria, and Richard Milsom from the United Kingdom), despite being convicted in a billion-dollar fraud (Rosca et al. 2019). Unfortunately, there are some negative trends to mention as well. The latest elections, as reported by free media, were marked by numerous cases of vote buying and large networks of corrupt practices (RFE/RL 2019). The Social Democratic Party and, to a lesser extent, PSRM were accused of alleged misuse of state resources. Reports included pressuring public employees as well as government officials to attend campaign events during work hours and campaigning for incumbent ruling party officials.

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Last but not least, there are some issues with campaign/party financing. The first problem is that parties do not report their spending properly, which creates ambiguities. The second is the connection between Igor Dogon’s PSRM and a Russian-linked offshore corporation which provided the party with at least 30 million MDL (1.5 million USD) which represents almost two thirds of the party’s annual financing. These Russian resources, through the party-affiliated private company Exclusive Media, helped finance Russian television channel NTV.

Conclusion Moldova was tagged once as the most promising model of democratic transition in Eastern Europe (EESC 2013). But on the way to establishing a normally functioning state, it has been challenged with considerable obstacles based on the rule of law and representative governments. On the one hand, civil society is thriving, the media market is free, and genuine opposition parties exist and operate. On the other hand, the imbalance in opportunities given to different political parties or disrespect shown to the courts by some political figures are clearly visible. Since 2017, Moldovan ruling parties have shown an exquisite sense of risk-taking by attempting to limit pluralistic institutions and strengthen the power of some vested interests and groups at the expense of essential democratic mechanisms. Moldovan laws on elections and political party organisations reveal several shortcomings while its regulatory bodies (CEC) remain vulnerable to mismanagement by powerful special interests. The allocation of public funding and the rules for private funding continue to require special attention to ensure a level playing field for all democratic actors. At the same time, private donations, membership fees, and third-party funding can be used to circumvent regulations such as spending limits (see Table 24.1). Nevertheless, Moldova is one of the ex-Soviet states where former presidents have lost their power via free and open elections, not by coups or sudden forced dismissals. This creates a solid and positive legacy which cannot be overwritten by current authoritarian tendencies. However, the country must accomplish its major mission: to de-oligarchise the state and make it fully functional.

6% threshold (9% for bloc of two Low key parties, 12% for alliances of more than two parties, 3% for independent candidates). 6% threshold (3% for independent Low key (with candidates), alliances not allowed. increased intensity towards the election)

2005

2009 (July)

2009 (April)

5% threshold (3% for independent candidates), alliances not allowed, at least 1/3 turnout.

6% threshold (3% for independent candidates).

2001

1998

Low key (with increased intensity towards the election)

Low key

Low key

Low key

Proportional electoral system, single national constituency, 104 seats, 4% threshold (even for independent candidates), D’Hondt method. 101 seats at least 50% turnout.

1994

Basic campaign characteristics

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 24.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Moldova

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Economy, stability, foreign policy, anti-corruption, anti-communist rhetoric. Economy, social issues, foreign policy, anti-corruption, anti-communist rhetoric.

Foreign policy, sovereignty of Moldova, economic reforms. Economy, foreign policy. Economy, social system, Soviet nostalgia. Geopolitical orientation, national cleavages.

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

(continued)

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

Foreign Domestic

Main campaign topics Presence of external advisors

366  I. MUNTEANU ET AL.

4% threshold (7% for blocs of two parties, 9% for alliances of more than two parties, 2% for independent candidates), ‘Robin Hood‘formula (remaining seats are not distributed proportionally but equally). 6% threshold (9% for blocs of two parties, 11% for blocks of 4 or more parties; 2% for independent candidates).

Mixed electoral system; 50 MPs elected proportionally, 51 in single member constituencies (FTPT); 6% threshold (8% for blocks of parties; 2% for independent candidates).

2010

2019

2014

Electoral system

Year of election

Table 24.1 (continued)

Competitive, visible throughout the country, increased intensity towards the election.

Increasing intensity towards the election, peaceful.

Low key (with increased intensity towards the election)

Basic campaign characteristics

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Foreign policy, social and economic Issues, (law and order, ecology, human rights). Economy and social issues, emigration, anti-corruption, foreign policy.

Foreign policy, past achievements.

N/A

N/A

N/A

(continued)

N/A

N/A

N/A

Foreign Domestic

Main campaign topics Presence of external advisors

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Type of communication (ads and media)

Appearance on TV and radio, TV spots, dailies or weeklies, posters, leaflets.

TV spots, posters (limited), leaflets.

TV spots, posters (limited), leaflets.

TV spots, posters (limited).

Billboards, posters, TV spots.

Year of election

1994

1998

2001

2005

2009 (April)

Table 24.1 (continued)

Public meetings, door-to-door, inflammatory language. Door-to-door canvassing, public meetings, negative campaigning. Door-to-door canvassing, public meetings, negative campaigning. Door-to-door canvassing, public meetings, negative campaigning.

Public meetings, door-to-door canvassing.

Types of campaign activities

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Use of polling Campaign and research spending techniques? limits

Possibility to buy airtime

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, right to Yes participate in debates is free.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, incl. 200 Yes lines in local press.

Free airtime on public media

(continued)

Misuse of administrative resources (incumbents). Pressure on students and employees, police abuse, biased media. Biased media, police abuse, pressure on employees and students.

Misuse of administrative resources, intimidation of opposition party voters, biased media. Biased media.

Notes

368  I. MUNTEANU ET AL.

Billboards, posters, TV spots and films.

Internet, social media, leaflets, posters, billboards.

Internet, social media, billboards, and posters. Social media, billboards, leaflets.

2009 (July)

2010

2014

2019

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 24.1 (continued)

Negative campaigning, public meetings, door-to-­ door canvassing.

Door-to-door canvassing, public meetings, negative campaigning. Door-to door canvassing, public meetings (incl. concerts and entertainment). Public meetings.

Types of campaign activities

Yes for candidates, no for parties

Yes

Yes

Yes

Use of polling Campaign and research spending techniques? limits

Possibility to buy airtime

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, right to Yes participate in debates is free. Yes Yes

Free airtime on public media

Pressure on students and state employees, biased media. Vote buying, pressure on public employees.

Misuse of administrative resources, police abuse, biased media. Biased media.

Notes

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References e-Democracy. 2009. Election News from April 7, 2009: Riots and Vandalism Actions on the President and Parliament Headquartes. http:// www.e-democracy.md/en/elections/parliamentar y/2009/electoralnews/20090407/#c1. Accessed 20 June 2019. EESC (Eastern Europe Studies Centre). 2013. Moldova Reality Check. Success Story Before the Storm? 2nd Non-Paper. http://www.eesc.lt/uploads/news/ id673/Moldova%20Reality%20Check_December_2013.pdf. Accessed 20 June 2019. Electoral Code of the Republic of Moldova, Law No. 1381-XIII, adopted on 21 /11/1997. Freedom House. 2005. Freedom in the World 2005: Moldova. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2005/moldova. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2019. Freedom in the World 2019: Moldova. https://freedomhouse. org/report/freedom-world/2019/moldova. Accessed 20 June 2019. IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union). 1994. Republic of Moldova, Parliamentary Chamber: Parlamentul, Elections Held in 1994. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2215_94.htm. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 1998. Republic of Moldova, Parliamentary Chamber: Parlamentul, Elections Held in 1998. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/ arc/2215_98.htm. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2001. Republic of Moldova, Parliamentary Chamber: Parlamentul, Elections Held in 2001. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/ arc/2215_01.htm. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2005. Republic of Moldova, Parliamentary Chamber: Parlamentul, Elections Held in 2005. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/ arc/2215_05.htm. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2009a. Republic of Moldova, Parliamentary Chamber: Parlamentul, Elections Held in April 2009. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/ arc/2215_09_apr.htm. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2009b. Republic of Moldova, Parliamentary Chamber: Parlamentul, Elections Held in July 2009. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/ arc/2215_09_jul.htm. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2010. Republic of Moldova, Parliamentary Chamber: Parlamentul, Elections Held in 2010. http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/ arc/2215_10.htm. Accessed 20 June 2019. Journal MD. 2015. Platforma Civică ‘Demnitate şi Adevăr’ intenţionează să organizeze proteste masive; ‘Societatea trebuie trezită’. http://jurnal.md/ro/ social/2015/2/27/platforma-civica-demnitate-si-adevar-intentioneaza-sa-organizeze-proteste-masive-societatea-trebuie-trezita/. Accessed 20 June 2019. Law no. 78/2018 on the modification and completion of the Law no. 294/2007 on Political Parties. http://lex.justice.md/index.php?action=view&view=doc &lang=1&id=375878. Accessed 20 June 2019.

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Law on Political Parties of the Republic of Moldova, Law No. 294, adopted on 21/12/2007. Locoman, Ecaterina. 2017. How Moldovan Politicians Use Foreign Leaders for Domestic Purposes. Eurasianet. https://eurasianet.org/how-moldovan-politicians-use-foreign-leaders-for-domestic-purposes. Accessed 20 June 2019. Morozov, Evgeny. 2009. Moldova’s Twitter Revolution. Foreign Policy. https:// foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/07/moldovas-twitter-revolution/. Accessed 20 June 2019. OSCE. 1998. Moldova, Parliamentary Elections, 22 March 1998: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/moldova/14864. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2001. Moldova, Parliamentary Elections, 25 February 2001: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/moldova/14836. Accessed 20 June 2019. OSCE. 2009a. Moldova, Parliamentary Elections, 5 April 2009: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/moldova/37568. Accessed 20 June 2019. OSCE. 2009b. Moldova, Parliamentary Elections, 29 July 2009: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/moldova/39799. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2010. Moldova, Early Parliamentary Elections, 28 November 2010: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/75118. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2014. Moldova, Parliamentary Elections, 30 November 2014: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/moldova/144196. Accessed 20 June 2019. ———. 2019. Moldova, Parliamentary Elections, 24 February 2019: Final Report. https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/moldova/420452. Accessed 20 June 2019. Promo-Lex. 2013. Răpit de ofiţeri de la Anticorupţie şi dat pe mâna separatiştilor. https://promolex.md/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Raport_finantareapartidelor-politice_24.10.2018_ENG-1.pdf. Accessed 20 June 2019. RFE/RL (RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty). 2019. Crucial Moldovan Parliamentary Vote Marred by Fraud Allegations. https://www.rferl.org/a/moldova-elections-dodon-socialists-acum-democrats-russia-eu/29787009.html. Accessed 20 June 2019. Rosca, Matei, and Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli. 2019. MEPs Help Campaign of Moldovan Convicted in $1B Fraud. Politico. https://www.politico.eu/article/ ilan-shor-fulvio-martusciello-barbara-kappel-richard-milsom-meps-help-campaign-of-moldovan-convicted-in-1-billion-fraud/. Accessed 20 June 2019. RsF (Reporters sans Frontiers). 2019. Moldova. https://rsf.org/en/moldova. Accessed 20 June 2019.

CHAPTER 25

Ukraine Larisa Doroshenko

Country Overview Ukraine gained sovereignty in 1991 through the ‘ballot box revolution’ (Futey 1992, 123), a referendum in which citizens approved complete independence from the Soviet Union. Ukraine’s oscillation between East and West, Russia and Europe, is rooted in the history of the country, which remained divided between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on one hand, and the Russian Empire, on the other, for over two centuries. This division is reflected in culture, such as the differences in spoken language, religious affiliation, and the interpretation of history, especially the role of Ukrainian nationalists in World War II.  Political division is expressed in people’s preferences for Western integration projects, such as the European Union and NATO, and Russian initiatives, such as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Eurasian Customs Union (EACU). The choice between closer unity with Russia or Europe has marked Ukrainian contemporary history and has been one of the major issues in virtually all national election campaigns since the early 2000s. L. Doroshenko (*) University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_25

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The second most important factor influencing Ukrainian politics over the last few decades has been its indivisibility from big business. As the Soviet system of state ownership was crumbling, major industrial assets were purchased by a handful of young businessmen who over the years accumulated most of the country’s large industries. To increase their influence, these oligarchs sought advancement of their interests through politicians, judges, and media outlets, fostering corruption and bribery at all levels of socio-political life to the present day.

Legal Framework The current legislation regulating parliamentary elections in Ukraine was signed in November 2011, and just over a dozen minor amendments have been made since then. The unicameral parliament, called the Verkhovna Rada, consists of 450 members who are selected for five-year terms according to a mixed system—half of the mandates are distributed according to a proportional system and party lists, while the other half is determined by winning a simple majority in single-mandate districts (SMDs). Election campaigns are financed through the state budget and parties’ funds. Candidates from parties who are registered in SMDs must raise their own election funds. Parties are required to have one savings account for incoming money and checking accounts for financing campaign expenditures, while candidates in SMDs should have only one checking account for all transactions. A party’s election fund should be equal to or less than 90,000 minimum wages,1 while the budget for an SMD candidate should not exceed 4000 minimal wages. The nomination of candidates ends 120 days before election day for party lists and ninety days for SMDs. The official campaign runs sixty days. However, parties can start financing a campaign from their funds the day after registration by the Central Election Commission (CEC). Recently candidates have started campaigning even before official registration starts, creating legal issues as to how to regulate these activities. All campaigning must stop by midnight on Friday, allowing for two days of silence before election day, which always falls on a Sunday. As for media coverage, according to the law, registered parties and single-­mandate candidates have access to mass media outlets on equal conditions. The price for airtime and publishing space is determined a 1

 As of 2 January 2019, one minimum wage in Ukraine is UAH 4173 or USD 155.

25 UKRAINE 

375

­ undred days before election day and should not exceed the average price h for commercial advertisements for the last three quarters of the pre-election year. Each party receives a free hour of airtime on every national television and radio station, as well as a free twenty minutes on local stations. SMD candidates receive only twenty minutes on local television and radio stations. This airtime must be during primetime—between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m.—and the order is determined by drawing lots no later than fifty-three days before the election. Parties can publish their programmes on equal terms in the newspapers Holos Ukrainy (Voice of Ukraine) and Uryadovy Courier (Governmental courier), as well as in one local printed media outlet, while SMD candidates have access only to local newspapers. The order of publishing programmes is determined by the order of registration at the CEC. The commission also allots funds for printing posters with parties’ and candidates’ programmes and/or election lists no later than thirty-five days before the election day. Polling agencies, when publishing their results, must identify the date of the poll, territory it included, sampling method and size, mode of conducting an interview, exact wording of questions used in the poll, and margin of error. When mass media publishes the results of opinion polls, they must also indicate the polling agency. Exit polls cannot be published before the end of the election.

Historical Overview of Campaigns The first electoral legislation in independent Ukraine was passed in 1993 and elections were held in 1994. For the first time, it officially declared the role of political parties in the process of nominating candidates. However, the law made this process so cumbersome, especially for unfledged Ukrainian parties, that only one in ten candidates during these elections was actually nominated by a party. To nominate a candidate, a party already registered by the Ministry of Justice had to repeat the process at the CEC as well as conduct a meeting of its regional chapter and present to the CEC a list of at least one hundred present party members and include their personal data. As a result, most candidates were nominated by workers’ collectives (26.7%) and by informal groups of voters (62.3%). Many party members ran as independents, increasing the overall proportion of such candidates to 72.7% from 11% in the 1990 elections (Birch 2000). The legislation also preserved the Soviet-style majoritarian system with a fifty per cent minimum electoral threshold in each precinct and required that a winner receive an absolute majority of votes. Not surprisingly, after

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the first democratic elections in 1994, the Verkhovna Rada had only two-­ thirds of its members because many precincts did not comply with one or both requirements. Additionally, citizens voted by crossing out the names of the candidates for whom they did not want to vote for, instilling ‘negative voting’ tendencies among Ukrainians (Futey 1992). Patronage networks which existed during the Soviet period among communist leaders were still very strong, making candidates more reliant on administrative resources rather than on actual campaigning. A majoritarian election system with SMDs only increased this tendency. Many parties had difficulty articulating a coherent electoral programme, which resulted in a majority of the population being unaware of them. An opinion poll conducted by Democratic Initiatives in February 1994 listed a fictitious ‘Party of Order and Justice’, which resulted in it being ranked fourth in people’s voting preferences (National Democratic Institute for Internal Affairs 1994). Mass media at that time was in similar disarray, and there was no clear legal basis for regulating emerging commercial media outlets, which at the same time gave them more freedom from party officials and oligarchs (Golubev 2015). Even though there were four party camps during these elections (the left, the centre, the national democrats, and the extreme right), the distribution of votes was largely determined by region—those living in Western Ukraine were more likely to vote for the national democrats, while those in the eastern part, for the communists. The next election cycle in 1998 was characterised by changes in the political and media systems, which created campaigning practices which continue influencing Ukrainian politics today. New electoral legislation from October 1997 introduced positive voting. This made elections faster and more efficient as well as aimed at fostering party formation and consolidation processes. However, party factionalism remained high. Out of the thirty parties which participated in that campaign, seventeen were founded after the previous elections and a majority of those within a year of the date when party lists had to be registered with the CEC (Birch 2000). Most of the old and new parties coalesced around prominent political figures such as the president and prime ministers. Another indicator of factionalism was the large number of votes cast for parties that did not overcome the four per cent threshold—almost thirty per cent. Ticket-splitting—when people who cast votes for a particular party do not necessarily support a candidate from that party in an SMD—was also a common phenomenon.

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Mass media since 1994 has become more concentrated around business leaders and financial groups. Commercial media needed resources to support their work, while Ukrainian oligarchs could provide these resources in exchange for power in shaping public opinion (Golubev 2015). The European Institute for the Media lamented that ‘in many news items the distinction between political advertising and news coverage was blurred, as was the distinction between news and editorial comment’ (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1998, 8). Scholars noted an imbalance in the amount of television airtime and the number of mentions in news that favoured pro-government candidates (Malinin 2006); state television coverage focused on and promoted the pro-president People’s Democratic Party (NDP) while portraying others in a negative light, including Hromada and the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU). Incumbent governments also exercised pressure on commercial media outlets affiliated with the opposition. For instance, in January 1998, one of the most popular and respected television shows Pislyamova (Epilogue) went off the air due to pressure from tax authorities while two daily newspapers affiliated with the Hromada party faced suspension and large fines. These elections were characterised by more professional campaigning, including the first television ads and phone canvassing. Advertising was extensive and significantly more expensive than in 1994 with the theme of overcoming the economic crisis dominating most of messages. New parties such as the Party of Greens of Ukraine (PZU) had well-financed national advertising campaigns, which helped it to finish fourth, while KPU relied on traditional techniques, such as direct voter contact, and using its remaining administrative resources, securing first place (see Table  5.2). This campaign was also characterised by considerable mudslinging and large amounts of kompromat revealed by various political groups. In preparation for the 2002 parliamentary campaign, the Verkhovna Rada passed a new electoral law six times, which President Leonid Kuchma vetoed every time. This new legislation sought to establish a proportional system to further support party formation and curb the use of administrative resources in SMDs. In a compromise between the executive and legislative branches, the 1997 legislation remained largely intact. In order to consolidate fragmented small parties, some of them united into blocs, a strategy which proved to be successful among voters.

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The bloc Our Ukraine was created in February 2002 to unite parties that opposed Kuchma’s government. This bloc attracted influential ­businessmen who used to be close to the President, representatives of large Russian oil companies, and nationalist parties such as the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) and Svoboda. This helped to gain votes in Western Ukraine. According to their campaign slogans, Ukraine had only one: the government and it must be changed. Viktor Yushchenko was presented as a suitable alternative because, as the slogans stated, he had improved Ukraine’s economy without borrowing money from the West or Russia. Another political alliance For United Ukraine! was created in December 2001 to unite parties supporting the incumbent president. Prominent television channels such as STB, ICTV, and UT-1 were controlled by Viktor Pinchuk, a member of the alliance, and his political associate Andrei Derkach, guaranteeing positive coverage of the existing government and negative portrayals of its opponents. This election campaign also begot the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT), one of the oldest, and one which is still prominent in the Ukrainian political arena today. It started as the loose National Salvation Committee in February 2001 during protests against Kuchma, which followed with the arrest of Tymoshenko. At that time, she was deputy prime minister and was accused of forgery, bribery, corruption, and embezzlement. A year later the charges were suspended, and she was released from custody. BYuT complained of negatively slanted media coverage and an informal media blackout as a number of publishing houses in Kiev refused to continue printing newspapers associated with the bloc, such as Vechirni Visti (Evening news) and Slovo Batkivshchyny (Motherland’s word). Another practice which characterised this and later election campaigns was vote buying. According to reports by the Committee on Voters of Ukraine (CVU), there were several registered cases of free goods and services being provided in an attempt to sway voters, the distribution of anonymous and compromising information about political opponents, coercion to join political parties, and pressure to contribute to election campaigns (Committee on International Relations 2002). This election campaign also started emphasising divisions within the country—West, Centre, and Southeast. Political blocs emphasised these divisions by portraying Yushchenko in a Nazi uniform on billboards, alluding to his associations with Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with occupiers during World War II.  Yushchenko’s opponents also

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emphasised his wife’s American citizenship, implying that together they would sell Ukrainian land to Americans. These divisions became prominent in the election results. While western and northern regions supported the Our Ukraine Bloc, which came in first, the south and east cast their ballots for the Communists who came in second, while the progovernment and pro-­Russian bloc For United Ukraine! was particularly popular in Donbass and finished third. The 2006 parliamentary campaign was dominated by the same political actors and continued its emphasis on divisions within the country. However, relationships between political blocs changed along with the system of government and electoral legislation. After the Orange Revolution, citizens, realizing that their protests boiled down to a mere power struggle, became disillusioned with the ‘Orange’ government (Wilson 2013). Constitutional reforms made Ukraine a parliamentary-­ presidential republic where its legislature was elected for five years according to a proportionate system with an imperative mandate rule, stipulating that deputies would lose their mandate if they left their party. In the media sector, the pressure from the government was substantially reduced while dependency on private owners increased, incorporating media outlets in the ongoing struggle for power among large business owners. The Party of Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovych who lost his 2004 presidential bid, seized the rift in the Orange camp. Its campaign involved expensive political consultants from the United States and Russia, including Paul Manafort and Gleb Pavlovsky. Major themes focused on the economy and included proposals for raising wages, eradicating poverty, and stabilising prices. Candidates from the Party of Regions, the so-called Regionals, continued using divisive rhetoric, opposing closer ties with the West and evoking the collaboration of Ukrainian nationalists with Nazis. Language issues and closer ties with Russia also emerged in the television ads of like-minded smaller parties, such as the bloc Ne Tak! (in a contrast to Yushchenko’s Tak! during the 2004 presidential campaign) and Natalia Vetrenko’s bloc People’s Opposition. One of the advertisements featured a student who was not allowed to leave the classroom because she had asked to do so in Russian, while another featured a black Orthodox priest appealing to ‘Protect canonical Orthodox!’ BYuT’s main slogan in 2006 was ‘Justice exists, it’s worth fighting for it’, implying that the leader of the bloc lost her position because she fought for justice with Yushchenko. During this campaign, BYuT started using its

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now iconic symbol of a red tick mark in the shape of a heart, accompanied by the phrase ‘Vote with your heart’. Tymoshenko spent six months ­campaigning on tour, which helped to almost double her rating during the final weeks before the election. The Our Ukraine bloc associated with the incumbent, President Yushchenko, continued riding the Orange wave using the same slogans, principles, and symbols from the 2004 presidential campaign. Appealing to their voters to not betray the revolution, the party did not offer anything of an alternative and eventually was defeated by its ideological and strategic opponents such as Yanukovych and Tymoshenko. The Regionals’ campaigning strategies paid off and after three months of negotiations, they created a majority coalition with the Communists, making Yanukovych the prime minister. Ministers from Our Ukraine were forced out of the government within months, while BYuT withdrew from the Verkhovna Rada, rendering it inquorate. Just a few months after the elections, Yushchenko dissolved the parliament and early elections took place in September 2007. In contrast with the previous year, a record low of twenty blocs and parties competed in the elections. BYuT continued its strategy of touring the country and repeated the same messages which had worked for the bloc in 2006. The Party of Regions positioned itself as the incumbent and repeated pre-tested slogans about unity with Russia and opposition to NATO. Ukrainskaya Pravda (Ukrainian truth) got a hold of the Regionals’ strategy for the 2007 campaign and compared it with a marketing business-­model. The party wanted to expand its support base to Central Ukraine, a traditional stronghold of Tymoshenko, and pay more attention to economic issues there, reserving anti-NATO and second state language rhetoric for Donbass. The party allotted the largest amount of its campaign budget for television ads (57.3%) and the least for online campaigning (a mere 0.7%). The strategy also discussed collateral campaigning through news blocs in the form of press releases and direct work with journalists who were asked to write PR articles for the Regionals. Our Ukraine, realizing its failure to mobilise voters and be a part of the ruling coalition with the stronger BYuT, renewed its party lists and campaigned on cancelling deputies’ immunity and privileges under the slogan, ‘There’s one law for everyone’. These changes did not affect the results of the early elections, which closely replicated the 2006 cycle. Tymoshenko though had learned her lesson and was able to assemble a ruling coalition. The

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struggles of her government during the economic crisis ultimately paved the way for Yanukovych’s presidential victory in 2010. Ironically, the 2006–2007 elections, conducted according to the proportionate system in a parliamentary-presidential republic—a model that worked well in European democracies—brought Ukraine back to an authoritarian regime. Constitutional changes in 2010 reintroduced a presidential-­ parliamentary system, expanded control of the incumbent Party of Regions over local governments, raised the election threshold to five per cent, and reintroduced SMDs, which were meant to guarantee Regions’ candidates would win through the use of administrative resources. New regulations also prohibited the participation of party blocs, which along with the higher threshold were meant to help create a Party of Regions’ majority in the Verkhovna Rada. A couple of the party’s political opponents were also eliminated: Tymoshenko was arrested in 2011 and Yurii Lutsenko, a prominent member of the Socialist Party of Ukraine and Tymoshenko’s cabinet, was sentenced early in 2012. The media also fell back under the control of the government, albeit, unlike in early 2000s, this control was exercised indirectly through private media owners associated with the Party of Regions and the incumbent government. Serhiy Kurchenko, who is purportedly connected to Yanukovych’s family, purchased Ukrainian Media Holding Group (UMH). Serhiy Arbuzov, a businessman and politician from Donetsk, joined the Party of Regions in 2010 and started building his media empire, purchasing the television stations VTV, Business, and Tonis as well as the newspapers Vzgliad (View) and Capital. First Vice Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky at that time also owned one of the largest media conglomerates in Ukraine: the Inter Media Group (Golubev 2015). In these circumstances, the incumbent government relied on its extensive administrative resources and favourable media coverage to preserve its majority in the Verkhovna Rada. The Party of Regions’ campaign contrasted its achievements of economic stability with the chaos of the Orange leadership. However, trying to win votes across the country, the party softened its geopolitical stance against the West and now advocated for a ‘balanced’ approach. BYuT, renamed Fatherland, advocated for European values and campaigned against Russian as a second state language. The newly created party Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR, translated as ‘blow’), led by professional boxer Wladimir Klitschko and also in opposition to Yanukovych, coordinated its strategy with Fatherland two weeks before the elections to

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maximise votes. The civic network OPORA registered 322 cases of votebuying, as well as campaigning by directors of government-controlled companies on behalf of local incumbent deputies in the election cycle.

Recent Trends The most recent parliamentary elections in Ukraine took place after Euromaidan in 2014. Since Yanukovych, along with many supporters and which included media owners, fled the country, there have been substantial changes in sociopolitical and media structures. The Euromaidan wave removed Orange candidates such as Poroshenko, Klitschko, and Tymoshenko and raised to the surface new far-right and populist politicians, such as the Right Sector’s Dmytro Yarosh and the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko. What remained unchanged, however, is Ukrainians’ scepticism of politics and their disappointment in the lack of comprehensive reforms. Foreign investment started coming back to the news media sector after it stopped in the mid-2000s. 5 Kanal, which came into prominence during the Orange Revolution, remained connected to Poroshenko’s business and, after being in opposition, became aligned with the incumbent government. The former Party of Regions, rebranded as the Opposition Bloc by Paul Manafort, maintained close ties with Inter Media Group, which in 2013 was sold to pro-Russian oligarchs Dmytro Firtash and Serhiy Lyovochkin. In addition to traditional television channels, which remain the most prevalent source of voter outreach (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 2015), internet television channels became prominent during and after Euromaidan, including Hromadske.tv, Espresso TV, and Spilino.tv. However, there is still no comprehensive legislation which regulates online mass media (Golubev 2015). This is an especially acute issue given the proliferation of fake news websites and occasional cyberattacks ascribed to the Russian Internet Research Agency. The 2014 elections to the Verkhovna Rada preserved a mixed electoral system, which was also to be used in 2019, preserving the potential for abusing administrative resources in SMDs and vote-buying. Many candidates on party lists were not members of these parties, which undermined the accountability of their voting choices and coalition-building once elected. This situation predictably made it difficult to implement necessary reforms and led to the political crisis of 2016 which resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenuk.

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The elections took place just four months after the presidential campaign and many politicians continued campaigning through both election cycles. These campaigns took place amidst a military confrontation in Donbass, making it one of the most pressing issues along with the annexation of Crimea. A newly created pro-president bloc continued rhetoric which worked for Poroshenko, appealing to voters to ‘Live anew’. Tymoshenko decided to refrain from political advertisements, considering it immoral to waste money on expensive airtime when ‘Russian tanks were standing at the Ukrainian border’ (Kravchuk 2018). Oleh Lyashko, a radical populist portrayed in a traditional vyshyvanka embroidered shirt with a hayfork, positioned himself as an ordinary countryman, eschewing technical details in the programme of his Radical Party while engaging voters through various staged visits to Donbass, local events in regional centres, and interactive online campaigning, including social media (Doroshenko et al. 2018). In the absence of strong administrative resources, vote buying resurfaced as an issue that continues plaguing Ukrainian elections. In 2014, OPORA registered around sixty cases of various violations, including use of charity funds to sway voters benefiting from a cause, providing goods and services, as well as paying scholarships (Dvali 2014). There were also cases when candidates sold cheaper grocery products in their campaign tents. Vote buying also included paid contracts with campaigners (in contrast to activists and volunteers) who received money from ‘grey’ campaign funds to canvass on behalf of a party. Some schemas were created according to the principle of network marketing, where recruited citizens had to bring more people to receive more money in exchange for their support of a candidate in SMDs. Vote buying continues to be an issue in 2019. By mid-February, sixty criminal investigations have been opened concerning attempts to bribe voters with money, groceries, and other goods. The Security Service of Ukraine conducted over thirty searches and confiscated tens of thousands of US dollars from a group allegedly created to implement vote buying on a large scale (Milanova 2019). Shady PR and hidden advertising also remain stable features of Ukrainian election campaigns, often exercised through media outlets affiliated with a certain political camp. For instance, local newspapers slurred opposition candidates Tymoshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky (OPORA 2018). The latter is allegedly sponsored by oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, owner of the television channel 1 + 1, while Zelensky runs

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the popular comedy show Evening Quarter (Kvartal 95) and the sitcom Servant of the People (Sluga Naroda). This sitcom started in late 2015 starring Zelensky as a president of Ukraine who conducts reforms and fights corruption. Conveniently, the third season was scheduled to start airing right before the first round of the presidential elections. Social media has become an important tool in political mobilising campaigns after they demonstrated mobilising and organisational potential following Euromaidan (Bohdanova 2014; Onuch 2015). After popular Russian-based social media platforms Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki were blocked in Ukraine in 2017, Facebook took over the market (43%), followed by Pinterest (26%), Twitter (11%), and YouTube (10%) (Statcounter 2019). In the 2014 elections, many parties without access to administrative power resources, such as the Radical Party and the Right Sector, used social media to share news with their supporters and engage them in online and offline political volunteering, including the organisation of local groups in regional centres (Doroshenko et al. 2018). The ongoing presidential campaign in Ukraine continues the trend, with Zelensky, the leading non-incumbent candidate, relying on a dozen digital platforms to build support and rapport, spread information, and recruit volunteers. He started his election campaign with volunteer recruitment via online questionnaire, and continued engaging social media volunteers to interact with his supporters on Facebook and Twitter as well as to spot any misinformation being spread by his opponents. The 2019 presidential campaign also clearly demonstrated the lack of trust towards politicians. It is the first time that the ratings of the most popular presidential candidates have barely reached twenty per cent, posing serious problems in uniting the country around the future president. This trend is part of the pan-European politics of disbelief, but it also reflects the disappointment of Ukrainians after Euromaidan. So far, old Ukrainian elites from the Orange Revolution have nearly exhausted their potential while new elites have not yet been fully formed.

Conclusion After two revolutions and a dozen election campaigns in post-Soviet Ukraine, its geopolitical pendulum has finally stopped, and the country has firmly resolved to follow through with European integration. However, conflict in Donbass remains unsolved and the economic situation in Eastern Ukraine remains dire, which creates plentiful ground for its

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r­eignition. All pro-European politicians also promise to return Crimea, which by now is well absorbed into the Russian Federation, making these unsubstantiated promises even more incredible for already sceptical Ukrainians. So, while the majority of the country is moving westwards, its Eastern part remains behind. A switch back to a proportionate system with open or semi-open party lists might help to foster maturity of the party system, reduce corruption within parties, and eliminate reliance on money and administrative resources in SMDs. However, it is important to remember the lesson of the 2006 campaign when disenchantment with the Orange coalition eventually led to authoritarianism. Lastly, more candidates engage in online and social media campaigning, expanding the role of digital media alongside the proliferation of online news and internet television in the country (see Table 25.1). So far it looks like new political actors such as Lyashko, Sadovy, and Zelensky use digital platforms in more interactive and creative manners, but future election cycles will demonstrate whether this trend will also spread among older parties who have more traditional power bases. While being more engaging and beneficial for the engagement of younger voters, online media nevertheless can also pose a threat to developing Ukrainian democracy if it remains unregulated and vulnerable to foreign influence.

SMD, 50% minimum electoral threshold and absolute majority for winner. Mixed, 4% threshold.

Mixed, 4% threshold.

Proportional, 3% threshold.

Proportional, 3% threshold.

Mixed, 5% threshold.

Mixed, 5% threshold.

1994

2002

2006

2007

2012

2014

1998

Electoral system

Year of election

Yes

Yes

No

Early elections after the inquorate parliament dismissed. Reversal to presidential-­ parliamentary system, party blocs banned. Early elections after Euromaidan Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Issues Candidates

Campaign focus

Parliamentary-presidential Yes system introduced.

Party factionalism, mud-sliding. Parties started uniting into blocs.

Most candidates run as independents, reliance on patronage networks.

Basic campaign characteristics

Table 25.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Ukraine

Economic crisis, corruption. Corruption, economy, regional divisions between West, Centre, and South-East. Post-Orange Revolution power struggle, regional divisions, language issue. Corruption, economy, second language, anti-NATO. Choice between Russia and the EU, stability, language issue. European integration, language issue, war in Donbass, Crimea annexation.

Economy and reforms, Soviet legacy.

Main campaign topics

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Foreign

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Domestic

Presence of external advisors

386  L. DOROSHENKO

Billboards, leaflets, newspapers, TV ads, first online ads. Billboards, leaflets, newspapers, TV ads, internet. Billboards, leaflets, newspapers, TV ads, internet, hidden advertising. Billboards, leaflets, newspapers, TV ads, internet, social media, hidden advertising.

Billboards, leaflets, Rallies, concerts, direct newspapers, TV ads, voter contact, party internet, active social tents, vote buying. media campaigning, hidden advertising.

2002

2014

2012

2007

2006

1998

Rallies, concerts, direct voter contact, party tents, administrative resources and vote buying.

Rallies, direct voter contact. Rallies, direct voter contact, party tents, administrative resources. Rallies, concerts, direct voter contact, party tents, vote buying. Rallies, concerts, direct voter contact, party tents. Rallies, concerts, direct voter contact, party tents.

Billboards, leaflets, newspapers. Billboards, leaflets, newspapers, first TV ads.

1994

Types of campaign activities

Type of communication (ads and media)

Year of election

Table 25.1  (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes, 90,000 minimum wages.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Mass media controlled by the government through private media owners associated with the incumbent government. Proliferation of online TV, media system becomes more independent from the government pressure.

First post-Soviet parliamentary elections. Media system concentrate around business leaders and financial groups. Media outlets affiliate with political groups. (polarised pluralism) Increased influence of private capital in media system.

Use of polling Campaign Free airtime Possibility Notes and research spending on public to buy techniques? limits media airtime

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References Birch, Sarah. 2000. Elections and Democratization in Ukraine. London and New York: St. Martin’s Press. Bohdanova, Tetyana. 2014. Unexpected Revolution: The Role of Social Media in Ukraine’s Euromaidan Upraising. European View 13 (1): 133–142. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s12290-014-0314-6. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. 1998. Ukraine’s Parliamentary Election: March 29, 1998. Washington, DC: United States Congress. ———. 2015. “Ukraine: Confronting Internal Challenges and External: Hearing Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress,” Second Session, 9 April 2014. Washington, DC: United States Congress, Government Publishing Office. Committee on International Relations. Subcommittee on Europe. 2002. Urging the Government of Ukraine to Ensure a Democratic, Transparent, and Fair Election Process Leading up to the March 31, 2002, Parliamentary Elections. Washington, DC: United States Congress. Doroshenko, Larisa, Tetyana Schneider, Dmitrii Kofanov, Michael A.  Xenos, Dietram A. Scheufele, and Dominique Brossard. 2018. Ukrainian Nationalist Parties and Connective Action: An Analysis of Electoral Campaigning and Social Media Sentiments. Information, Communication & Society 22 (10). https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1426777. Dvali, Natalia. 2014. Ajvazovskaya: Na vyborah v 2002 god uizbirateleipodkupali 20 grivnami, segodnia taksavyrosla do 500 griven. Gordonua.com, October 19. https://gordonua.com/publications/ayvazovskaya-na-vyborah-v-2002godu-izbirateley-podkupali-20-grivnami-segodnya-taksa-vyrosla-do-500griven-46963.html. Futey, Bohdan A. 1992. Averting Civil Conflicts Through Elections in Ukraine. In Every Vote Counts: The Role of Elections in Building Democracy, ed. Richard W.  Sourdriette and Juliana Geran Pilon, 121–140. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Golubev, Sergei M. 2015. Sistema SMI Ukrainy v 1991–2014: Osnovnye Etapy Razvitia i Ih Osobennosti. Gramota 51 (1): 38–44. Kravchuk, Aleksandra. 2018. Politychna reklama v Ukraini: Presidentski vybory-­ 2014—‘po-novomy’ ta z ‘radykalnymi’ vylamy. 24tv.ua, September 21. https://24tv.ua/politichna_reklama_v_ukrayini_prezidentski_vibori_2014__ po_novomu_ta_z_radikalnimi_vilami_n1035110. Malinin, Volodymyr S. 2006. Ukrainski mediakorporacii v processi globalizatsii. Institute of Journalism at Kyiv National University of Taras Shevchenko. http:// journlib.univ.kiev.ua/index.php?act=article&article=1531. Accessed 15 Feb 2019.

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Milanova, Yana. 2019. V SBU rasskazali o rezultatahobyskov u chlenov ‘izbiratelnoipiramidy’. Ukrainskaya Pravda, February 21. https://www.pravda.com. ua/rus/news/2019/02/21/7207297/. National Democratic Institute for Internal Affairs. 1994. The March 27, 1994 Parliamentary Election in Ukraine: Pre-election Report. Washington, DC: National Democratic Institute for Internal Affairs. Onuch, Olga. 2015. EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media Versus Social Networks. Problems of Post-Communism 62 (4): 217–235. https://doi.org/10 .1080/10758216.2015.1037676. OPORA. 2018. Statti z oznakami ‘chornohopiaru’ opublikovani na storinkakh hazet Ternopilshchyny. https://www.oporaua.org/news/vibori/vibori-prezidenta/vibori-prezidenta-2019/46022-statti-z-oznakamy-chornohopiaru-opublikovani-na-storinkakh-hazet-ternopilshchyny. Accessed 15 Feb 2019. Statcounter—Global Stats. 2019. Social Media Stats in Ukraine. http://gs.statcounter.com/social-media-stats/all/ukraine. Accessed 22 Feb 2019. Wilson, Andrew. 2013. The East Europeans: Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. In Developments in Central and East European Politics, ed. Stephen White, Paul G. Lewis, and Judy Batt, 79–101. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

CHAPTER 26

Russia John Ishiyama

Country Overview Party campaigning in Russia is affected by the institutional rules of the ‘game’. Three features stand out which impact campaigning in Russia. First, there is a system of what has been referred to as superpresidentialism (Fish 2000), which resulted from the creation of a powerful presidency in the 1993 constitution. In particular, it has been argued that superpresidentialism has acted as a major impediment to the development of political parties. An important impact of superpresidentialism is that by concentrating authority in the hands of a single individual, the politics of personality prevails, making it more difficult for parties to develop coherent programs and identities (Hale 2010). In a superpresidential system, candidates have relatively little incentive to associate with political parties, since the legislature (the principal arena for party politics) has such little say in policy. Rather, individuals tend to focus on forming personal attachments with presidential hopefuls, bypassing association with political parties (Hale 2010). Because of the predominance of personality, Russian campaigns J. Ishiyama (*) University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_26

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focus a good deal on individuals (or a party’s association with noteworthy individuals) rather than party programs, with the exception of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF). Second, the electoral system—a mixed member district (MMD) system—for State Duma elections has promoted the importance of personality as opposed to party. According to Moser (1999), the single member district system, coupled with weak parties, promoted candidate-centred campaigns and the politics of personality. This system was used from 1993 to 2006, where half of the 450 State Duma seats were elected using single mandate districts with a plurality formula, and the other half were elected via party-list proportional representation. For the 2007 parliamentary elections, Russia switched to a fully proportional system with a seven per cent threshold. This threshold—one of the highest in Europe—resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of parties in the State Duma, down to the current four: United Russia, the KPRF, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), and A Just Russia (SR). This party ‘cartel’ in Russia was reinforced in the 2011 election results. For the 2016 election—the length of office term was lengthened from four to five years prior to the election—the mixed parallel system was reintroduced, although the 225 single member districts were redrawn to benefit United Russia (Karpyuk 2014). In any case, this again reinforced the personalisation element in the Russian campaign environment. A third institutional element which frames party campaigning is federalism. Constitutionally, Russia is a federation made up of eighty-five subjects, which includes units with different powers, making it an asymmetric system. Although the constitution enshrines regional autonomy, there has been a growing concentration of power in the president’s hands since Vladimir Putin became president of the Russian Federation in 2000. Furthermore, United Russia’s dominance in regional parliaments and executives has greatly limited regional autonomy. Thus, like the Soviet Union, federalism is hollowed out, with most, if not all power concentrated in the hands of the political centre (Chuman 2011). However, control over governorships is still important, and the political parties compete for these offices. Governors were directly elected from 1995 to 2005. Later, from 2005 to 2012 under Putin, governors were nominated by the federal president and confirmed by the legislatures of subjects of the Russian Federation (although the presidents/heads of two republics, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, continued to be directly elected

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during this period) (Chuman 2011). On 1 June 2012, direct elections of governors were reintroduced. This reintroduction has provided another level of competition for the political parties, as well as opportunities for the opposition. For instance, the KPRF currently controls two governorships and a republic head (in Oryol and Irkutsk, and Khakassia), the LDPR controls three (Khabarovsk, Smolensk, Vladimir), and SR, one (in Omsk). The Party System in Russia The features of the Russian party system also affect the campaign environment. In the 1990s, several scholars labelled the Russian party system a ‘floating’ system (Rose et al. 2001). This system was characterised by the frequent appearance and disappearance of political parties, as well as weak connections between the parties and voting constituencies. However, by the twenty-first century, the party system had consolidated around four very stable parties: United Russia, KPRF, LDPR, and SR. The KPRF and the LDPR have been active and represented in every Duma election since 1993. Moreover, they have had continuous leadership under Gennady Zyuganov (KPRF) and Vladimir Zhirinovsky (LDPR). The KPRF is the organisational successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, founded in 1993 after the ban on the Communist Party was lifted (March 2002). The LDPR was founded in 1989 and is headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky. It is a statist, ultranationalist party that is based on Zhirinovsky’s ideas of a renewed ‘Greater Russia’ (Hanson 2011; Hale 2010). Although it often promotes itself as an opposition to the governing United Russia, the party overwhelmingly votes with United Russia (unlike the KPRF) (Hutcheson and McAllister 2017, 458). SR was formed in October 2006 as a merger of the party Motherland, the Russian Party of Life and the Russian Pensioners’ Party, as well as six other minor parties. Scholars, such as Sakwa (2011), have suggested that SR was created by Putin and the siloviki (securocrats) to siphon off support from the KPRF in preparation for the 2007 legislative elections. United Russia was founded in 2001 as the unification of the party Unity, which was created prior to the 1999 Duma elections to support Yeltsin in holding off a challenge from Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, and his Fatherland—All Russia party. United Russia is currently the ‘party of power’ and has won the largest number of seats in the State

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Duma since 2003 while dominating most of the regional legislative assemblies (Hutcheson and McAllister 2017). Most scholars have characterised the Russian party system as a ‘hegemonic’ or ‘dominant’ party system (Reuter and Remington 2009; Smyth et al. 2013). The key feature of such a party system is one where a single party dominates but there exists ‘official opposition’ parties which ‘afford the appearance but surely does not afford the substance of competitive politics’ (Sartori 2005, 205). In such party systems official oppositions are created to provide official channels for some limited power sharing. These parties are pushed to the periphery and only offer token opposition, such as in Mexico under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Magaloni 2008). Unlike the predominant view that the Russian party system is ‘hegemonic’, Hutcheson (2012) argues that the system resembles more of a party ‘cartel’. Katz and Mair (1995) additionally contend that cartel party systems are where parties, rather than compete with one another, collude to extract subventions from the state and to keep out competitors who might challenge the parties’ access to state patronage resources. Using the idea of the party cartel, Hutcheson (2012) suggests that the relationship between United Russia, KPRF, LDPR, and SR is cooperative rather than merely being an ‘official opposition’ (see also Oversloot and Verheul 2006). However, unlike other cartel party systems in the West (where there is collusion between relatively equally matched parties), in Russia there is clearly a dominant partner (United Russia) which controls a supermajority of seats in parliament. In this sense, the Russian system is a dominated cartel party system where United Russia is the central actor. The features of the party system affect how politicians campaign in Russia. First, unlike in hegemonic party systems, campaigns do matter; and like a cartel party system, election results count (affecting the share of the ‘pie’ the individual parties receive). Second, given the nature of the dominated cartel party system, the campaign messages of the competing parties in the cartel must define their positions (either for or against) the positions taken by United Russia. However, because United Russia portrays itself as the party of stability, without much in the way of taking hard positions on any issues, this provides openings for parties like the KPRF and LDPR (and to a much lesser extent SR) to define themselves very differently from United Russia during campaigns (but colluding with United Russia once the election is over).

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Legal Framework There are several features of the legal framework in Russia which limit what parties can do in terms of transmitting their campaign messages, funding campaigns, and when campaigns occur. First, current legislation regulates the dissemination of information about political parties and candidates (for a list of laws, see Samoilenko and Erzikova 2017, 255). The law on campaigns and political parties defines election campaigning (known in Russian as ‘pre-election agitation’) as ‘the activities carried out during the election campaign which are intended to encourage or encouraging voters to vote for a candidate, candidates, list of candidates, or against it (them)’. Regulations also list election campaigning formats and methods and outlines requirements for the content, distribution dates, and placement order of campaign materials. In practice, candidates and political parties are eligible for one hour of campaign advertisements from every state-funded media outlet. What time slots are issued for free television airtime depends on a draw which occurs prior to the opening of the campaign period (in 2016, this was held on August 16). Free newspaper space is allocated after television airtime is allocated (Parlamentskaya Gazeta 2016). State-funded newspapers are required to allocate five per cent of the total weekly space for campaign advertisements. This space is divided so that half of it is provided to individual candidates and the other half is allocated to political parties. Parties that receive less than three per cent of the vote lose access to free mass media in the next election. Parties are allowed to purchase additional airtime and media space as long as they do not outspend their overall campaign funding limit. Further media outlets must charge all partisan candidates the same rate (Samoilenko and Erzikova 2017, 256). In terms of campaign spending limits, legislation requires that a federal election fund be established to fund parties and candidates. Overall, sources of electoral funds are limited to: 1. personal sources which shall not exceed one thousand times the minimum wage; 2. amounts allocated to a candidate, a registered candidate of the party that nominated the candidate, which shall not exceed five thousand times the minimum wage; 3. funds equally allocated by a district election commission to each registered candidate in that district;

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4. voluntary donations to the candidate from individuals and legal entities which shall not to exceed a hundred times (for individual donations) and two thousand times (for each legal entity) the minimum wage. Parties are also eligible for funding. They are limited in their spending to not exceed a hundred thousand times the minimum wage, and receive funds allocated by the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation. Furthermore, they can receive voluntary donations from individuals and legal entities not exceeding more than 150 times (for each citizen) and twenty thousand times (for each legal entity) the minimum wage. Restrictions on donations are placed on foreign individuals and entities, as well as on Russian companies who received more than thirty per cent of their chartered capital from foreign sources. Further restrictions include prohibiting donations from those under eighteen, local government entities, state owned entities, charity and religious organisations, anonymous donors, and legal entities registered less than a year before the election day (Ikstens et al. 2001). Finally, the legal framework in Russia specifies the time when campaigning is allowed. Election advertising can only begin twenty-eight days before the election day. Political campaigning on the day preceding the election day is prohibited. For the 2016 parliamentary election, the election date was changed by presidential decree in June 2016 from December (which had been the case since 1993) to 18 September 2016. Official campaigning for the 2016 election therefore began on 20 August and ended on 16 September.

Historical Overview of Campaigns How are campaigns run in Russia? In this section I examine how campaigning has evolved since the 1990s in terms of (1) growth in the use of media (television, print media, and, more recently, the Internet and social media), (2) increases in the professionalisation of campaigns and the use of consultants, and, finally, (3) the evolution of party campaign strategies. Use of Media in Party Campaigns During the latter part of the Soviet period and the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the media was much less controlled by the state

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and much more open and active. However, despite the new freedoms, without state sponsorship, many media outlets struggled to survive. Oligarchs, such as Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, began to purchase major media outlets—electronic and print—which quickly became vehicles to express the political preferences of their new owners. The 1996 presidential election ended what Samoilenko and Erzikova (2017, 254) called the ‘golden era’ of post-Soviet independent news and introduced a new era of ‘televised political spectacle’. ‘The oligarchs bankrolled Boris Yeltsin’s election campaign, and media owners guaranteed favorable media coverage of the president, helping him to win his second term. As the result of the 1996 presidential elections, a new cast of “spin doctors” were born’ (Oates 2006). After the 1996 election, the ‘parties of power’ were the most likely to develop coherent media strategies (Hutcheson 2009, 638). However, these strategies have been pragmatic rather than dogmatic, and their identity is less defined by some program as it is by their desire to find gaps in the electoral market in which they can position themselves. Thus, Sarah Oates has described the parties of power as essentially ‘broadcast parties’ (Oates 2006). In the 1999 election, two parties of power, Unity (which supported then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin) and Fatherland-All Russia, were pitted against each other. Research suggested that television media played an important role in mobilising voters and affecting the outcome of the election (Enikolopov et al. 2011). An important role was played by the ‘television killers’ such as Sergei Dorenko, who appeared on his show Vremya on Channel One (then known as Public Russian Television or ORT) to regularly attack the principal opponents of Vladimir Putin. He openly used scandalous material, much of which was fabricated, and he soon became a favourite of Putin (Sigelman and Shiraev 2002). In the 2003–2004 parliamentary and presidential elections, campaigning focused on spin and the clash of personalities rather than policy. United Russia won the State Duma election of 2003 using the slogan ‘Together with the President’. Most of the advertising during the campaign was dominated by United Russia, the liberal opposition (some of whom were backed by maverick oligarchs), and smaller parties which were well-­ financed but had little in the way of popular support (Samoilenko and Erzikova 2017, 261). Notably, the largest opposition parties, KPRF and LDPR, had little in the way of a television or media presence, with the former relying heavily on newspaper advertisements. The 2007 election

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was also non-competitive, and again, United Russia used its significant resource advantage to exclude the opposition from the mainstream media, minimising the airtime of opposition candidates and restricting the activities of some election monitoring groups (Samoilenko and Erzikova 2017, 261). In 2011–2012, large protests were sparked by accusations of vote rigging in the parliamentary elections. The protests were largely held in Moscow but spread to other cites as well. In the election, United Russia had failed to reach fifty per cent of the popular vote for the first time in its history, and this intensified United Russia’s efforts to elect Putin in the 2012 presidential election. Thus, in the 2012 presidential election, there was an intensification of the media campaign in support of Putin with a significant decrease in the coverage of other candidates. Heavy media coverage, plus the increased use of internet resources, helped ensure his victory. These resources were also mobilised for the 2016 parliamentary election campaign, where the United Russia party fully endorsed the policies of the president. According to Hutcheson and McAllister (2017, 22), United Russia obtained more television news coverage than all the other thirteen parties combined in the 2016 election. As a result of the use of such resources, the United Russia won a crushing victory, winning over seventy-six per cent of the vote. Some scholars have suggested that the increase in internet access in Russia might change the way parties campaign (Samoilenko and Erzikova 2017, 262). Since parties are developing an increased online presence, this may equalise the competitive playing field for the opposition vis-à-vis the electorally dominant United Russia. However, this has generally not happened. An earlier study by March (2004) suggested that United Russia used their internet site in 2003 to highlight the party’s connection to President Putin, but the other opposition parties, such as the KPRF, primarily used their site to store party documents and other publications related to the party’s history, as opposed to using it as a campaign tool. The LDPR used its site to sell books by Vladimir Zhirinovsky and other publications by nationalist thinkers. Further, Roberts (2015) found that in the 2011 election, there was no evidence that the Internet led to the online engagement of opposition parties and candidates for the purposes of campaigning. Indeed ‘candidates were either unaware or uninterested in interacting with voters online and the feeling seems to have been mutual’ (Roberts 2015). For the 2016 election, Hutcheson and McAllister (2017) found that despite the rise of social media and internet usage in Russia, television was

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still the primary media source, with KPRF voters much more likely to use television than online sources. However, as with previous elections, KPRF exposure on television was limited (as was the case with other opposition parties). Overall though, the parties’ footprint on social media was ‘miniscule’ (Hutcheson and McAllister 2017, 23). Furthermore, although United Russia used its Twitter feed, it uses it mainly as a news alert system rather than as a campaign tool. Professionalisation of Party Campaigns Another important development has been the increased use of campaign consultants in Russia (Hutcheson 2009). Although to some extent, there has been an ‘Americanization’ of the use of consultants, there are some significant differences as well. As Wilson (2005) points out ‘electoral technologists’ in Russia do more than what consultants to do in the West. Whereas in the West consultants fashion political messages for political parties, in Russia the electoral technologists have been employed by the parties of power to spin the political framework itself in virtual form. Thus, political consultants largely work with United Russia as opposed to other parties. The use of political consultants has changed over time. As Hutcheson (2009) notes, in the 1990s political consultants focused on producing slick advertisements as opposed to paying attention to clear marketing strategies. However, beginning with Boris Yeltsin’s re-election campaign in 1996, the political campaigning industry has become increasingly sophisticated, including fairly large companies such as the Foundation for Effective Politics, Novokom, and Image-Kontakt. These large companies gained access to administrative resources in the Putin era, whereas smaller firms, which were employed by candidates in the single member districts and gubernatorial elections, became less numerous. Hutcheson (2009) argues that consultants working with the parties of power (such as United Russia) are generally the larger Moscow based firms, and they are charged with cultivating ties with businesses, not just campaign messaging. Whereas in the 1990s business often backed several parties (including the KPRF), under Putin, United Russia has demonstrated that it can deliver policy results immediately. The decline in the number of consultancies after 2007 has led to an increase in the amount of consulting done in-house by political parties, especially the opposition. The leading parties (including United Russia)

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have set up special sections which deal with political marketing, many of which are now staffed by the employees of major advertising companies. Overall, there has been an increase in the professionalisation of campaigns—more people employed in the industry have academic training in marketing strategies and professional ethics than was the case in the 1990s (Hutcheson 2009, 641–642). Party Campaign Strategies Campaign strategies, in terms of messaging, has also changed over time (Oates 1998). One of the ‘innovations’ introduced in the 1990s was so-­ called ‘black PR’ as a way to smear opponents. This proved a potent tool employed by political marketing specialists. Unlike negative advertising used in Western political campaigns, black PR employed the use of kompromat or compromising materials about public figures (White and McAllister 2006). Such materials were used liberally in campaigns in order to create negative publicity about opponents. Sometimes it was used to blackmail candidates into withdrawing from electoral competition. Electoral technologists transmitted overt falsehoods, taped telephone conversations, and other pseudo- events to the press in the guise of ‘news’ (Zassoursky 2004). Russian news (which, as discussed above, was becoming increasingly biased) showed compromising materials not only to report negative news about an individual or an organisation, but also to obfuscate and confuse viewers (Oates 2006, 116). These practices were not limited to the electoral technologists working for the parties of power. As a 1999 LDPR campaign handbook distributed to members put it, ‘The more unbelievable the rumor, the quicker the people will believe it’ (Hutcheson 2009, 643). There were many other ‘dirty tricks’ used during campaigns. For instance, in the single member district elections it was common to use doubles or candidates who were paid a fee to stand in an election with a similar name to targeted opponents to confuse voters and lower the level of their support (Hutcheson 2009, 643). However, over time, the use of dirty tricks has declined as Russian campaigns have become more professionalised. What has proven far more effective is the use of administrative resources to enhance the likelihood of election. Although the use of black PR and dirty tricks has generally declined in national elections, they continue to be used in regional elections. These include the use of old-style kompromat about alleged crime connections or past convictions, as well as

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information about the rumoured wealth and corruption of candidates (Samoilenko and Erzikova 2017).

Recent Trends Over the past few years, some recent trends have been characterised by increasingly different campaign strategies offered by the United Russia and its chief opposition, the KPRF (especially since the 2011 parliamentary elections). Whereas United Russia campaigns have become increasingly professionalised and digitised, with expansive media campaigns funded by administrative resources, the KPRF style of campaigning relies heavily on traditional methods of local party organisation, voter mobilisation (particularly older voters), newspaper advertisements, short television spots, public appearances by Zyuganov and other KPRF leaders, and campaign flyers and posters. The KPRF does not have access to the same kinds of resources available to United Russia. However, recently the KPRF has been able to capitalise on growing discontent with United Russia governance (although not necessarily with Putin). In 2011, the obvious manipulation of the Duma results in favour of United Russia led to the largest anti-government rallies since Soviet times. The KPRF has since sharpened its attacks on United Russia, with Zyuganov saying a ‘moment of truth’ had arrived for the ‘popular patriotic forces’ to unite against the Kremlin elite (Galeotti 2016). In 2018, another wave of protests swept Russia, this time over the Putin administration’s decision to significantly increase the retirement age for pensions. The protests were led largely by KPRF and was the largest nation-wide protest since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Communists organised large demonstrations and sustained the movement for over two months. In the end, the government had to retreat, but discontent carried over into the local elections of the following year. As a result of these events, the talking points for KPRF campaigners now emphasise government corruption and incompetence. The Communists also advocate real policy changes, such as increasing taxes on the rich (who only pay a thirteen per cent flat income tax), rather than on simply calling for the restoration of the Soviet Union. By focusing their campaigns after the 2016 election on real issues, the KPRF has reshaped the national conversation onto sensitive issues relating to poverty, corruption, and maladministration. This has helped the party more at the regional level than nationally. KPRF candidates at the local level have tried to portray an image of incorruptibility and competence, while also hinting at

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nostalgia for a more ordered past. This was certainly the image portrayed by Sergei Levchenko who won the gubernatorial election in Irkutsk in 2015. In 2017, a Communist became governor of Oryol Oblast (although he was appointed by Putin), and the party’s candidate won the election outright in November 2018 in the Republic of Khakassia. In both cases young men in their thirties represented the KPRF.  This indicates an attempt to portray the party as an option for a younger generation hurt hard by unemployment and an economy in recession (Table 26.1).

Conclusion In keeping with the general themes explored by this book, in this chapter I explored the institutional context, the party system, the legal framework, and the history of campaigning in post-Soviet Russia. Over time, within the context of the dominant cartel party system, there has emerged two very different models of campaigning. On the one hand, there is the model of a party as an organisation which exists to support the president, with access to enormous amounts of administrative resources, and which has embraced modern media campaigning techniques and the professionalisation of campaigns. United Russia represents this model. The LDPR is closer to this model but lacking access to state resources. On the other hand, there is the model of the KPRF, a party that is more ideological and generally campaigns on programme rather than on personality (although the party is still identified with Zyuganov) and which relies on more traditional, less modernised campaign techniques and its network of party cells and local organisation. SR is in some ways more like the KPRF in this respect but lacks the organisation of the Communists. It is possible that the overly slick and manicured campaign strategies of United Russia (and its lack of substance in its campaign message) will gain increasingly less traction with voters in the future, especially if the Russian economy continues to lag and nothing is done to address the growing disparities within the population. This may provide an opening for the KPRF in the future, which has tried to portray a younger, competent, and incorruptible image to voters. However, as long as Zyuganov remains as head of the KPRF, the party will be anchored to the past, facing an ­electorate to which his message is increasingly irrelevant. If Zyuganov were to go, this would open the possibility for a new generation of ‘reformed Communists’ within the party to emerge, as well as the possibility of joining forces with SR, an event which may represent a significant challenge to future United Russia dominance.

2007

2003

1999

1995

Yes

Yes

Issues

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

Highly personalised, No pitting two elite parties against each other to determine the party of power. Significantly less No competition, establishment of United Russia as ‘party of power’. United Russia eliminates No most competition (except for Communists) and leads creation of cartel party system.

Highly personalised, pitting party of power under Yeltsin against Communist opposition.

Conflicts among new parties.

1993

Mixed member district system (parallel), 225 seats from party lists, 5% threshold; 225 seats from single member districts. Mixed member district system (parallel), 225 seats from party lists, 5% threshold; 225 seats from single member districts. Mixed member district system (parallel), 225 seats from party lists, 5% threshold; 225 seats from single member districts. Mixed member district system (parallel), 225 seats from party lists, 5% threshold; 225 seats from single member districts. PR-List system with 7% threshold.

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 26.1  Evolution of Campaigning in Russia

Yes

Yes

No

Who better to support restoration of Russian ‘greatness’ and who can better manage economy.

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

How to raise the standard Yes of living. How to restore Russian ‘greatness’.

Pitted supporters of President Yeltsin against other elite challengers.

Expertise vs. ideology, anticommunism, relation to the past.

Criticism regarding state socialist system, a smooth transition vs. fast and radical transformation.

Main campaign topics

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United Russia loses No support due to charges of corruption, large scale Protests follow charges of ‘rigged’ elections. Heavy campaigning on Yes support for President Putin, United Russia wins overwhelming victory. Communists campaign on against corruption and incompetence and advocate tax reform.

PR-List system with 7% threshold.

Mixed member district system (parallel), 225 seats from party lists, 5% threshold; 225 seats from single member districts.

2011

2016

Issues

Yes

Yes

Candidates

Campaign focus

Basic campaign characteristics

Year of Electoral system election

Table 26.1 (continued)

Yes

(continued)

Yes

Yes

Foreign Domestic

Presence of external advisors

Little in the way of real Yes policy debate; debate is over who is with Putin and who is opposed. Basic agreement over direction of country, but growing concerns over pension reform and growing disparity between rich and poor.

Little in the way of real policy debate; debate is over who is with Putin and who is opposed.

Main campaign topics

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Rallies, canvassing. Rallies, canvassing, candidates’ debates on public television. Rallies, canvassing, candidates’ debates on public television. Rallies, canvassing, candidates’ and party chairs’ debates on public television.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media (public only). Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in the electronic media; web used to highlight connections to President Putin.

1993

1999

2003

1995

Types of campaign activities

Year of Type of communication (ads and election media)

Table 26.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Use of polling and research techniques?

Yes

Yes.

Yes

Yes

Campaign spending limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Free Possibility airtime to buy on public airtime media

(continued)

Beginning of use of websites to highlight party programmes.

Notes

26 RUSSIA 

405

Types of campaign activities Rallies, canvassing, candidates’ debates on public television. Rallies, canvassing.

Year of Type of communication (ads and election media)

Billboards, leaflets, ads in electronic media; web used to highlight connections to President Putin; asymmetric coverage of United Russia.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in the electronic media; web used to highlight connections to President Putin; asymmetric coverage of United Russia.

Billboards, leaflets, ads in the Rallies, electronic media; web used to canvassing. highlight connections to President Putin; asymmetric coverage of United Russia; ads in Web 1.0 and 2.0, intensive use of Facebook virtually monopolized by United Russia.

2007

2011

2016

Table 26.1 (continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Use of polling and research techniques?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes

Campaign spending limits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Free Possibility airtime to buy on public airtime media

United Russia fails to win 50% of State Duma seats. Duma term of office is extended from 4 to 5 years. Virtual monopoly of media resources by United Russia. United Russia wins 76% of vote in 2016.

United Russia emerges as dominant ‘party of power’ in cartel party system.

Notes

406  J. ISHIYAMA

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CHAPTER 27

Summary for Eastern Europe Otto Eibl

After the Baltic republics declared independence from the Soviet Union, a referendum was held in the USSR in which most citizens voted for transforming the current state into a federation. Not everyone was happy with the latest development and Gorbachev’s policies. The highest levels of frustration were of course among hard-line communists, the then members of government, who attempted a coup d’état (the so-called August Putsch) aimed against Gorbachev and at maintaining the Soviet Union. They did not succeed, and the Soviet Union was dissolved on 25 December 1991. However, at that time, Ukraine and Moldova were already independent—both states declared independence after the putsch in August 1991. Nevertheless, they never really managed to break from the (direct or indirect) influence of Russia and never finished the transition from authoritarian regimes to fully democratic ones. And indeed, the relationship to Russia persists in being salient in both Moldova and Ukraine today. All three countries—Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova—opted for different political system settings. While Russia is a perfect example of superpresidentialism, Ukraine is perceived as semi-presidential, and O. Eibl (*) Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_27

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Moldova is a parliamentary republic. In Russia and Ukraine voters elect MPs in a mixed electoral system (half of the MPs are elected proportionally and half in single-member constituencies), Moldova uses a proportional electoral system. The level of electoral thresholds in respective countries has varied over time (from three to seven per cent for a single party and up to twelve per cent for alliances); Moldova is the country which has experimented with this particular setting the most. The nature of the electoral system in Russia and Ukraine bolstered personalisation of the whole political system. The voters’ focus is thus mainly on candidates, not political parties. This is especially the case of Russia, where voters (and candidates) have little incentive to associate firmly with political parties. That, of course, influences what election campaigns look like and what agenda the political parties try to set. All three states suffer from one major drawback: the power and influence of oligarchs and their close ties to (governing) politicians and political parties. What makes it even more problematic is the fact that many of these people own media outlets and use them to achieve their political goals. There are also numerous reports of corruption and bribery at almost all levels of sociopolitical life, including buying votes (for example, through cheaper grocery products in Moldova and Ukraine) or intimidating voters during election time. In this environment, it is almost unimaginable that the electoral contest could be free from the intervention of many actors, and thus, it is difficult to speak about fairness in campaigns. Although the elections are still perceived as free, at least in the sense that there are existing alternatives to incumbent parties who can run for office and there are many, more or less, formal rules that should secure the same approach to all contestant parties and candidates, the reality often offers an entirely different picture. Let’s focus on formal rules first. The campaign should be fair, and all contestants should be in all cases treated equally. In all countries, the lawmakers supported the introduction of campaign spending limits at some time and parties are granted some kind of access to media (free airtime, participation in election debates, etc.). This looks good on paper; in reality, however, many of these rules are violated continuously. One of the biggest problems in all countries is biased media. In many cases, they do not report on all political parties in the same manner. This is unfortunately true for both state (or public) and private media. The first is directly influenced by representatives of the states; the latter is concentrated around big business. In both cases, this bleak situation blurs

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differences between the news and political advertising. And indeed, the incumbent parties receive much better coverage (in terms of tonality and intensity) than opposition parties. Another major problem in all countries is rather frequent (mis)use of administrative, public, or state resources by incumbent candidates and parties. In Moldova, moreover, there were numerous reports of threatening voters and pressuring (state) employees and students to attend rallies of the governing party (or preventing them from running or going to opposition party meetings). In some cases, even the police were used to aggravate the smooth execution of the opposition parties’ campaigns. As we can see, for opposition parties, it is quite challenging to operate in a ‘normal’ manner during the campaign period. Although the elections are still (at least partially) free, they are not fair. And when they are not fair, it is hard to discuss the evolution of campaigning and professionalisation of communication and marketing processes. Under inequitable conditions, even outstandingly crafted campaigns can be beaten or prevented from being executed by more or less dirty tricks hallowed by state powers and institutions. We are still able, however, to assess the means and techniques political parties use to attract voters in these countries. In Moldova, political parties rely on ‘traditional’ low key techniques like door-to-door canvassing, organising rallies, leafletting, etc. This is partly due to the fact that (at least in during the 1990s) owning a television set (or even a radio) was something extraordinary because these electronics were perceived as luxurious and only a few could afford them. Campaigns in Moldova do not arouse much attention and are executed mostly in a calm manner. Nevertheless, in the last few elections, we noted the use of electronic media. Traditional techniques are used in Russia and Ukraine as well; however, in these states, we could witness a more dynamic evolution of campaign techniques. In both countries, television still plays a dominant role, but new online media is on the rise and not only politicians but also ordinary citizens use the advantage of new technology. The use of social media and their mobilisation power during Euromaidan can serve as a good example. In any case, political parties and candidates in Eastern Europe have sought new communication channels with their target audiences. At the same time, they use the services of professional consultants to help them to shape and spread their messages effectively. What the parties and candidates in Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine have in common is the use of negative campaigning. Since the 1990s, they have deployed black PR and the gathering of kompromat. In some cases, to

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prevent them from running in the election, even police investigations against oppositional politicians were started. In most cases, the negative tactics, however, consist only of accusing someone of something without providing further evidence. The weirdest negative tactics were spotted in Russia, where (opposition) candidate ‘doubles’ were deployed to confuse voters and weaken the actual candidate. Incorporation of the newest online tools and media indicate that the latest ‘trends’ in Eastern Europe are similar to those which can observed in the West; the parties have learned quickly how to use new technologies to establish connections or even relationships with voters. However, we must not forget about the ‘special’ nature of the media landscapes in this region which makes it impossible to draw any general conclusions on the state of campaigning in Eastern Europe countries. The only thing we can say is that for some parties and candidates, it is easier to run even without using the latest tools available solely because they are firmly bound to the governing elite.

PART V

Conclusion

CHAPTER 28

Conclusion Otto Eibl and Miloš Gregor

Electoral campaigns, political marketing, and political communication represent a dynamic area of political science which enjoys great interest from both practitioners and scholars. While political marketing was used for the first time less than seventy years ago, today it has become a strong and respected sub-discipline of political science. Research on political communication and campaign strategy has become an integral part of our effort to understand the world around us. Not in vain, a significant amount of attention and research interest is focused on the United States, which for many reasons can be seen as a mecca of political marketing. The size of the country, the frequency of elections, and their long tradition have become a nutritious backdrop for professionalisation and innovation in the conduct of election campaigns. Of course, the United States is not the only country in which researchers show interest. Many studies, research, and publications are also devoted to Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and others. The list of countries could continue, and it would be clear even if it was extended, that these were mainly countries representing Western democracies. This denomination, characterising countries not only O. Eibl (*) • M. Gregor Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_28

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regionally but mainly because of the values and political regimes they represent, is based on the logic of the perceived world at a time when political marketing had begun to emerge. It is logical in the sense that while the Eastern Bloc could rarely boast a free election, for the Western democracies free elections were the backbone of their political lives. However, times have changed, and so have political regimes. The Eastern Bloc began to lose its strength in the late 1980s and early 1990s, falling apart, and allowing many countries from the former Soviet bloc to renew their independence. Despite having no experience in running free election campaigns, new and renewed parties, after decades of communism or socialism, had to learn quickly how to communicate with voters, which meant the respective electoral markets turned into an attractive market for domestic and foreign political consultants specialising in electoral campaigns. For many agencies and consultants, the former Eastern Bloc has become a political marketing lab. And indeed, in many countries, pollsters and consultants from the West were present for the very first election. Their role was to help democratic parties run their campaigns and help them to understand what modern and effective communication means. Some of the political actors adapted to the new conditions easily, others were not so successful. In this book, we were following the path which political parties in Central and Eastern Europe had to undergo with regards to their electoral communication. In general, we got a threefold picture or three types of countries. The first group can be labelled as successful, and it is mainly represented by the Baltic states, states from Central Europe, and some of the Balkans. Hence these countries are mostly stable (and at least some of them are ethnically homogeneous) and the evolution of campaigning and the adoption of new tools and techniques were quite straightforward. Thus, these countries provided an ideal environment for foreign advisors who were able to take advantage of it. Their engagement in the region can be traced back to the early 1990s when they helped parties to orientate themselves and take up the new conditions of free political competition. Later, in most of the countries, the electoral campaigns were conducted by the parties themselves or with the help of domestic consultants. In any case, they slowly became more and more professionalised. Recently, along with the emergence of social media and the systematic use of polls, we have seen the increased engagement of foreign advisers in the region again. The second group is mainly represented by the states of former Yugoslavia (or Balkan countries in general) where a societal or even violent

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conflict hindered the development and implementation of modern communication means in the field of politics. Parties in these countries had to deal with severe issues. Identification with voters was realised on different levels and was rooted in the ethnic or religious heritage of the respective groups. In these cases, the parties did not have to deploy the latest communication tools to attract voters, because voters were affiliated with them at least to a certain level ‘automatically’. The situation reminds us of the premodern era of campaigning when voters were firmly affiliated to a political party which represented them based on deep societal cleavages. In other words, the source of mobilisation and voter support came from within the conflict itself. To be a member of such a conflicting group is then far more important than a bold- and colour-printed slogan on a professionally crafted poster or billboard. The development in individual countries differs mainly when considering whether and how intense the war in that country was in the 1990s or at the turn of the millennium. This largely determined the further development, though not exclusively, of the electoral campaigns and their professionalisation. The second important factor was the ability or willingness to join NATO and the European Union. Countries with no experience of war (or those which have been able to deal with its consequences) and which are part of the European Union take on the logic of Americanised and professionalised electoral campaigns more and more, and so too is there a higher degree of acceptance of campaign elements common to Western democracies. Nevertheless, the presence of foreign organisations has been and is still felt in other countries as well. More than anywhere else, there are think-tanks and institutes supporting democracy development. In recent years, we have also seen the significant onset of online communication and social media, as well as the negative aspects associated with these phenomena (such as fake news, bots, and online hate speech). Finally, the third group, unfortunately, still has not finished their transition to democracy and their struggles with oligarchs, clientelism, authoritarian tendencies, and abuse by state representatives and authorities. In these countries, the electoral contest is far from being fair and, for some (mostly opposition parties), it is difficult to compete with incumbents who very often (mis-)use their power, opportunities, and administrative resources. In the early 1990s, it seemed that the Eastern European countries were on the ‘right track’. However, the proximity and influence of Russia has had an enormous impact on their development: While the

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1990s represented an era of approximation to the West—at least in the term of elections and election campaigning—with the rise of Vladimir Putin, this trend has reversed. In both of the last two groups of countries, the evolution of communication campaign techniques is delayed, and it is not clear if the parties will be able to catch up with the states of the first group any time soon. * * * This book aimed to offer insights into the development of electoral campaigns in a part of Europe which has so far been overlooked by academics. Case studies from eighteen countries divided into four regions show that while, in the early 1990s, the area may have been seen as the ‘Cinderellas of electoral campaigns’, today, in most aspects, the majority of these countries can be compared with electoral campaigns in the West. The laws and rules governing electoral campaigns have, in the vast majority of countries, undergone changes over the last decade which clarify and more clearly define what parties and candidates can and cannot do during electoral competition. Electoral campaign financing through transparent accounts, the establishment of funding limits, the identification of where and how parties and candidates can advertise, and the definition of the role of (public and private) media are standards in most of the analysed countries. And the practice of election campaigns is in a similar state; the tools, strategies, preparation, and used communication channels are akin to the elections of Western democracies. The exceptions, of course, are those countries which are still struggling on the edge of democracy and more authoritative way of governance. However, we believe that the countries of the former Eastern Bloc deserve attention not only from practitioners but also from researchers involved in election campaigns. As we have shown in this publication, election campaigns are at a comparable level of professionalisation and face similar abuses as in other democratic countries. The challenge for further research is the question of how, and when, Eastern European countries and some Balkan countries will be able to catch up with more developed regions in the way they conduct their campaigns. At the same time, events in Central Europe over the past few years have raised the question of whether or not the countries of the region will maintain the tendency to move closer to Western democracies. The

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strengthening of populism, far-right parties, media oligarchisation, and states’ efforts to control media represent real threats to further free ­development in these countries and, therefore, they should be watched diligently.

Index1

A Albania, vi, 175, 176, 179–192, 260, 343–346 Americanization, 10, 11, 241, 244, 245, 316, 345, 399 B Balkans, vi, vii, 167, 173–176, 343–346, 416, 418 Ballard Partners, 186 Baltic states, vi, 21–24, 50, 83–85, 416 Barnes & Thornburg LLP, 186 Below-the-line (BTL), 291 Big data, 140 Billboard, 32, 85, 103, 105, 107, 122, 124–125, 132, 133, 135, 156, 160, 168, 184, 185, 205, 207–209, 228, 244–246, 261,

262, 265, 267, 312, 345, 361–363, 378, 417 Black PR, 56, 400, 411 Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), vi, 173–176, 199–211, 343–346 Bot, 208, 209, 346, 417 Brand/branding, 6, 31, 243, 316, 332 Braun, Alexander (Alex), 244 Broadcasting, 5, 51, 52, 74, 99, 152, 155, 156, 168, 182, 201n2, 202, 221, 222, 224, 240, 257, 258, 290, 333 Bulgaria, vi, 173–176, 219–231, 343–346 C Catch-all party, 5 Celebrity/celebritisation, 14, 71, 155, 241–243, 246, 331

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2019 O. Eibl, M. Gregor (eds.), Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5

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INDEX

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), v–vii, 10, 14, 416 Central Election Commission (CEC), 55n4, 68, 69, 186, 202, 208, 209, 221, 229, 357, 365, 374–376 Central Europe, 21, 22, 89–94, 167–169, 416, 418 Cinderella, 418 Cleavage, 3, 4, 23, 24, 53, 70, 154, 156, 206, 220, 310, 311, 343, 363, 417 Clientelism, 346, 417 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 373 Communication channels, 12, 57, 125, 139, 140, 158, 160, 169, 222, 228, 313, 346, 411, 418 Conflict, see War Consultants, v, 2, 11, 72, 73, 75, 84, 100–102, 135, 139, 158, 168, 169, 183, 187, 244, 293, 314, 315, 317, 345, 379, 396, 399, 411, 416 Corruption, 57, 90, 93, 106, 121, 134, 151, 157, 184, 206, 238, 242, 263, 264, 294, 346, 352, 356, 360, 361, 363, 364, 374, 378, 384, 385, 401, 410 Croatia, vi, 173–176, 237–247, 343–346 Czech Republic, vi, vii, 97–113, 167–169 D Debate, 6, 28, 36, 50, 54, 57, 69, 72, 91, 102, 104, 138, 182, 184, 188, 191, 206, 208, 221–223, 229, 230, 240, 262n6, 265, 267, 288n10, 291, 292, 312, 313, 317, 345, 352, 357, 359, 362, 410

TV debate, 103, 104, 133, 135, 168, 221, 223, 229, 291, 312–314, 346 Direct marketing/direct mail, 11, 34, 52, 122, 123, 207, 291 Disinformation, 107, 159 Door-to-door, 12, 33, 34, 55, 72, 107, 123, 209, 262, 265, 313, 358, 360–362, 411 Downs, Anthony, 5 E Eastern Europe, vi, 30, 349–353, 409–412, 417, 418 Electoral code (EC), 180–182, 257, 258, 356, 357 Electronic media, 52, 133, 155, 156, 158, 184, 187–190, 207, 222–224, 227, 230, 240, 257, 258, 267, 411 Email, 11, 291–293 Estonia, vi, 21–24, 27–37, 50, 83–85 Eurasian Customs Union (EACU), 373 Euro, 52, 133n2, 150 European Union (EU), vii, 21, 22, 32, 35, 50, 53, 83, 91, 98, 106, 115, 124, 131, 136, 150, 156, 174–176, 180, 188, 210, 220, 224, 225, 237, 238, 256, 259, 263, 267, 327, 331, 344, 352, 361, 373, 417 E-voting, 28, 29 F Facebook, 33, 72–76, 105, 125, 136, 137, 139, 140, 157–159, 185, 188–190, 224, 229, 230, 244, 265, 265n11, 294n18, 315, 333, 364, 384

 INDEX 

423

Face-to-face, 4, 36, 106, 107, 291, 293 Fake news, 138, 159, 190, 245, 346, 382, 417 Far-right, 98, 101, 382, 419 Finkelstein, Arthur J., 104n5, 186 Flašík, Fedor, 156 Foundation for Effective Politics, 399 Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 358 Friedrich Naumann Foundation, 358 Fundraising, 35

Internet, 11, 14, 28, 29, 35, 36, 52, 69, 72, 73, 76, 106, 107, 122, 132, 137, 139, 140, 155, 157, 158, 160, 184, 245, 246, 257, 258, 262, 262n6, 265, 265n11, 292, 314, 333, 333n2, 334, 346, 362, 385, 396, 398

G Get out the vote (GOTV), 12, 155 Graffiti BBDO, 290 Guerrilla marketing, 245

K Kelly, Stanley, 6 Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 358

H Hanns Seidel Foundation, 358 Hate speech, 206, 208, 209, 292, 346, 417 Henneberg, Stephan C.M., 9, 10, 138 Hungary, vi, 89–93, 115–130, 167–169 I Image, 6, 70, 73, 74, 84, 85, 103, 124, 135, 136, 138, 139, 183–186, 190, 191, 242, 243, 329, 331, 334, 357, 401, 402 Image-Kontakt, 399 Information and communication technologies (ICT), 315, 318 Information technology (IT), 315 Instagram, 125, 139, 140, 224, 229, 230 International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), 358 International Republican Institute (IRI), 183, 358

J Jasinskaja, Marina, 73

L Latvia, vi, 21–24, 49–59, 83–85 Leadership, 72, 74, 138, 241n1, 259, 260, 267, 334, 381, 393 political leadership, 1 Leaflet, 4, 34, 56, 100, 133, 153, 160, 168, 313, 345 Lees-Marshment, Jennifer, 9 Lipset, Martin, 3 Lithuania, vi, 21–24, 50, 65–77, 83–85 Lobbying, 186, 187 M Manafort, Paul, 379, 382 Market-and sales-oriented strategies, 9 Marketing 4.0, 138 Market research, 8 McKeon Group, 186 Media, vii, 4, 5, 7–9, 11–14, 28, 30–36, 51, 52, 55, 57, 58, 68–71, 122–123, 187–188, 291–292, 396–399

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INDEX

Member of parliament (MP), 222– 224, 226, 227, 229, 230, 326 Mercury Public Affairs, 73 Message, vii, 2, 7, 8, 33, 35, 73, 74, 85, 117–121, 124, 134, 135, 139, 140, 152, 154, 181, 184, 204, 205, 208, 224–227, 226n1, 229, 230, 245, 265, 292–294, 314–317, 329n1, 334, 359, 364, 377, 380, 394, 395, 399, 402, 411 Modern campaign, 6, 157 Moldova, 350–352, 355–366, 409–411 Muzin Capitol, 186 N National Democratic Institute (NDI), 183, 345, 345n1, 358, 376 National Election Commission (NEC), 132, 133 National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 345, 345n1 Negative campaign/advertisement, 138 Norris, Pippa, 3, 4, 6, 7, 124, 312 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), vii, 21, 53, 83, 91, 98, 115, 131, 150, 156, 174–176, 180, 220, 224, 225, 237, 256, 259, 261–262, 327, 344, 361, 373, 380, 417 North Macedonia, 174–176, 255– 268, 344–346 Novokom, 399 O Oligarchisation, 419 Online marketing, 33 Opposition research, 11

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 33, 182, 185, 202, 221, 240, 261, 262, 265, 345, 359–363 Outdoor, 29, 32, 33, 52, 68, 69, 71, 75, 84, 85, 107, 135, 137, 158, 333 P Party system, 3, 12, 23, 24, 27, 50, 53, 54, 67, 84, 98, 107, 116, 149, 167, 168, 220, 228, 310, 326, 334, 343, 385, 393–394, 402 Pavlovsky, Gleb, 379 Penn Schoen Berland (PSB), 103, 104, 244 Permanent campaign, 11, 55, 104, 106, 107, 123, 157, 160, 293, 328, 332, 334 Personalisation, 10, 12–15, 73–76, 85, 106, 121, 138, 241–243, 245, 310, 329, 334, 392, 410 Phillipe, Maarek, 6 Pinterest, 384 Podesta Group, 186 Poland, vi, 89–93, 101, 131–147, 167–169 Political marketing management, 9 Polls/polling, 6–8, 11, 29, 52, 65, 67, 68, 71, 72, 97–99, 103, 116– 118, 132, 134, 137, 138, 151, 152, 158, 168, 169, 181, 203, 207, 208, 230, 239, 258, 265, 266, 311, 315, 327, 331, 344, 357, 375, 376, 416 Populism/populist, 57, 58, 106, 107, 169, 259, 262–264, 266, 267, 419 Poster, 4, 12, 31, 69–71, 99, 100, 103, 119, 124, 133, 151, 152, 184, 185, 204, 205, 208, 209,

 INDEX 

222, 227–229, 246, 257, 259, 261, 262, 267, 290, 293, 312, 315, 330, 333, 345, 361–363, 375, 401, 417 Post-modern campaign, 160, 316, 318 Pre-modern campaign, 124, 160, 316 Professionalisation, vii, 10–12, 70, 75, 85, 102, 106, 139, 168, 207, 241, 243–245, 294, 312, 313, 334, 344, 345, 396, 399–400, 402, 411, 415, 417, 418 Programme, 14, 32, 33, 52, 68, 69, 117, 181–183, 187, 188, 202, 207, 222, 224, 229, 240, 257, 289, 290, 327, 329, 331, 345, 357, 359, 375, 376, 383, 402 Propaganda, 9, 21, 125, 139, 222, 226n1, 328, 330, 331 Public relations (PR), 6, 11, 31, 55, 56, 71–73, 75, 139, 185, 186, 225, 243, 380, 383, 400, 411 R Rally, 3, 4, 122, 123, 135, 137, 138, 153–155, 157, 158, 168, 182–185, 190, 204, 205, 207, 228, 243, 260–262, 265, 267, 312, 332, 345, 358, 361, 362, 364, 411 Relationship marketing, 123–125, 169 Representation, 22, 23, 29, 49, 65, 66, 97, 100, 149, 222, 228, 257, 260, 288, 312, 327, 356, 363, 392 Rokkan, Stein, 3 Romania, vi, 173, 175, 176, 285–295, 343–346, 359, 362 Russia, vi, 28, 53, 56, 57, 83, 136, 174, 175, 224, 350–352, 359, 360, 373, 379, 380, 391–403, 409–412, 417

425

S Saachi & Saachi, 290 Sawyer Miller Group, 100 Segmentation, 8, 9, 85, 117, 118, 138, 291, 315 Seguela, Jacques, 314 Serbia, vi, 173–176, 255n1, 325–335, 344–346 Shama, Avraham, 7–9 Short message service (SMS), 292, 292n16, 293 Slovakia, vi, 89, 91, 93, 94, 149–161, 167–169 Slovenia, vi, 173, 175, 176, 309–319, 344–346 Social media, 12, 28, 33–36, 57, 58, 69, 72–76, 85, 101, 105–107, 122, 125, 132, 136–138, 157, 159, 169, 185, 188, 191, 208, 224, 227, 229, 230, 244, 262, 265, 310, 312, 314, 316, 317, 333, 334, 346, 364, 383–385, 396, 398, 399, 411, 416, 417 Soros, George, 124 Spin/spin doctor, 135, 139, 243, 318, 397 Spot/TV spot, 30, 85, 132–135, 187, 223, 224, 226–230, 262, 290, 331, 345, 346, 357, 401 State Election Commission (SEC), 258 Strategy, vii, 1, 2, 32, 71, 72, 74, 75, 101, 103, 104, 117–119, 134, 138–140, 175, 181, 186, 188, 201, 204, 206, 207, 242, 243, 246, 259, 260, 267, 291, 294, 314, 330, 332, 344, 346, 377, 378, 380, 381, 396, 397, 399–402, 415, 418 Swing voters, 191

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INDEX

T Tactic/tactical, 9, 11, 12, 14, 35, 36, 71, 85, 103, 134, 138, 139, 154, 169, 242, 245, 292, 412 Targeting/target group, v, 7, 8, 11, 55, 75, 85, 124, 136, 138, 140, 157, 243, 330 Television (TV), 5, 28, 30–33, 35, 52, 57, 67–73, 75, 84, 85, 99, 103, 104, 122, 124, 132–135, 138, 140, 151, 152, 155, 156, 160, 168, 181, 182, 184, 185, 189, 204, 205, 208, 221–225, 229, 240, 244, 246, 261, 262, 262n6, 265, 267, 289–292, 292n16, 311–314, 316, 318, 327, 330, 331, 333, 333n2, 345, 346, 357, 360, 364, 365, 375, 377–383, 385, 395–399, 411 Transparency International (TI), 117, 209 Troll, 36, 138, 208, 229, 346 Twitter, 33, 125, 137, 139, 140, 159, 185, 189, 224, 229, 244, 265, 265n11, 333, 384, 399 U Ukraine, vi, 350–353, 373–386, 409–411 United Nations (UN), 256, 326

United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 358 United States of America (USA/US), 6, 100, 102, 104n5, 180, 186, 187, 190, 318, 383 The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 201 V Viber, 208 W War, 23, 173, 174, 180, 199, 200, 201n2, 204–206, 238, 256, 327, 328, 343–346, 353, 362, 417 Web 1.5, 159 Web 2.0, 314, 315 Western, v, vi, 1, 3, 14, 21, 36, 54, 75, 84, 85, 91, 184, 285, 329, 331, 334, 345, 350, 352, 373, 376, 379, 400, 415–418 Wring, Dominic, 1, 8, 9 Y Young voters, 157, 191, 362 YouTube, 33, 57, 105, 140, 224, 229, 230, 244, 333, 384 Yugoslavia, 173, 200, 260, 309, 326, 329, 343, 416