Tag: elections

Election Hostilities Shake Serbia and Hungary

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Political clashes, smear campaigns and attacks on political opponents dominated the election campaign period in Serbia and Hungary in the second half of March.

Ahead of general elections held on April 3 in both Hungary and Serbia, online incidents of political rivalry and nationalist propaganda were also recorded. Hungary also saw an increase in cases of homophobia in the lead-up to the controversial referendum on LGBTQ+ gay rights.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, meanwhile, media and TV reporters received threats and other offensive gestures from political figures in the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, the main Bosnian Serb party. In North Macedonia and Romania, where nationalist rhetoric is on the rise, more clashes occurred between ruling parties and political opponents.

Elections in Hungary and Serbia stimulate tensions

National elections were held on April 3 in both Hungary and Serbia. In Serbia, the parliamentary election coincided with presidential and local elections in 12 municipalities, including the capital, Belgrade.

Hungary went to the polls to elect a new parliament and cast votes in a controversial government-initiated referendum on LGBTQ+ rights.

Serbia’s main opposition parties, according to earlier polls, had little chance of beating the ruling Progressive Party-Socialist Party coalition and struggled to be heard.

In the event, President Aleksandar Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, secured an easy victory in the presidential and parliamentary elections.

After Vucic’s main presidential rival, Zdravko Ponos, a retired general and former diplomat, appeared on the political talk show of Serbia, “Utisak Nedelje” (“Impression of the Week”), some voters speculated that Ponos might snatch away the votes from the SNS and represent a break with the past conduct of the opposition.


Incumbent Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during his pre-election rally in Belgrade, Serbia, 31 March 2022. Serbia will be holding general elections on 03 April 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

In a case recorded on March 18, the YouTube channel of Nacionalna Televizija Happy (National TV Happy), a privately-owned TV channel in Serbia with national coverage, removed a video from its morning programme that featured a heated political debate involving the political analyst Boban Stojanović.

In the show, Stojanović, criticising the economic policy of the ruling SNS, asked his interlocutors if they knew how much salaries had risen since the fall of former leader Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, noting that the current salaries in Serbia were the lowest ever, since then.

In Hungary, tensions and partisan attacks ahead of the parliamentary elections were no less fierce than in Serbia.

Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party again won the election, and he is about to start his fourth successive term as prime minister.

In his victory speech, Orban criticised Brussels bureaucrats and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling them “opponents”.

[Zelensky has criticised Hungary’s refusal to unequivocally condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or allow lethal weapons destined for Ukraine to cross Hungary.]

Smear campaigns and attacks on political opponents, which most likely will continue in the post-election period, were Fidesz’s trademark in the run-up to the elections.

On March 15, Fidesz’s political rivals were targeted by the Hungarian state news agency MTI which took a photo of an opposition rally before the demonstration had actually begun.

The photo showed far fewer people than were later present at the event. Several newspapers, on the basis of this photo, said that very few people attended the demonstration, and some reported wrongly that the planned march was cancelled for this reason.

In another episode on March 22, the government sent an election campaign letter using the email addresses people had submitted to register for COVID vaccinations. The email, which attacked both the EU and the opposition, read that, “some Brussels leaders want to punish Russia at all costs, and they also want punitive measures that would place an additional unpaid burden on the shoulders of European citizens, including Hungarians”.

Justice Minister Judit Varga, echoing the government’s anti-EU campaign, also claimed incorrectly that Hungary did not receive any EU help in “stopping migration” in a post published on Facebook last March 23.

Homophobia surges ahead of disputed referendum

The Fidesz-sponsored referendum on LGBTQ+ rights, which coincided with the date of the general elections, also prompted numerous violations in the Hungarian digital space.


A ballot paper is stamped by an election official at a polling station during the general election and national referendum on the child protection law in Budapest, Hungary, 03 April 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/Zoltan

Although the referendum failed to become binding, as less than half of those entitled to vote cast ballots, the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in the country will likely remain under threat following Fidesz’s landslide election victory.

Following a case in early March, in which the szentkoronaradio.hu website published a list of names and photos of teachers who have supported LGBTQ+ rights, other incidents have occurred.

On March 23, CitizenGO Hungary, a local branch of a far-right advocacy group founded in Madrid, and the website vasárnap.hu, a portal linked to the junior ruling KDNP party, published homophobic articles linking homosexuality with paedophilia.

Vasárnap.hu also launched an appeal for people to go to the polls in the referendum, claiming that laws on the protection of children in Hungary were inadequate, and that the demands of LGBT rights groups were unfounded.

Reporters threatened and insulted in Bosnia

In 2016, after Bosnian Security Minister Dragan Mektic’s hearing in court, BIRN confirmed the opening of an investigation into Pavlovica Banka, a bank based in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, concerning a loan that Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik took out to buy a villa in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

After several years, the case continues to occupy space in the public debate and online.


Moilorad Dodik, Chairman of Bosnian Presidency (L), and Zeljko Komsic (R), member of Bosnian Presicency, attend a press conference after a meeting with Slovenian President Borut Pahor (not pictured) in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 05 March 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

On March 22, after giving a statement to the Prosecutor’s Office about his purchase of the villa, Dodik showed his middle finger to journalists from his car. After the picture of the offensive gesture went viral, Dodik later apologized, saying he had over-reacted after he recognized a television team that he thought was leading a media hunt against him.

Media journalists were also targeted in another case recorded on March 26, when Rajko Vasić a member of the main board and former secretary of Dodik’s SNSD, threatened on Twitter to blow up the television building of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Radio Television, BHRT.

BHRT owes large debts to the tax administration of Bosnia’s Federation entity. For these reasons, its accounts are blocked, and it faces complete suspension.

Commenting on its difficult financial situation, Vasić, said he would “blow up” the TV building “if others were ashamed to do so”. In response, Damir Arnaut, an MP in the Bosnian parliament and a member of the Party for a Better Future, filed a complaint with the authorities, accusing Vasić of terrorism.

Fake news targets North Macedonian officials

After last year’s political crisis, partisan attacks still mark the current scenario in North Macedonia. In Romania, similarly, clashes between the ruling party and its opponents mixed with a rise in populist and nationalist rhetoric dominate both institutional and online domains.

On March 25, two North Macedonian officials, public prosecutor Fatime Fetai and Justice Minister Nikola Tupanchevski, were targeted with fake news published in several news portals regarding their trip to Palermo for a football match between Italy and North Macedonia.


Aleksandar Trajkovski (L) of North Macedonia celebrates after scoring during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 play-off qualifying soccer match between Italy and North Macedonia at the Renzo Barbera stadium in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 24 March 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/CARMELO

Online media and various journalists claimed that Fetai and Tupanchevski were there on a state-sponsored trip and that their costs were covered by North Macedonia’s Football Federation. Both denied the claims and stated that they personally paid for their trips.

In Romania, parliament on March 14 passed a controversial law making incitement of political-based discrimination a crime. A person found guilty of this may now be sentenced from six months to three years in jail.

It was the second time the law came before parliament. An earlier version was turned back by the Constitutional Court, after a complaint launched by Romania’s President. This time too, a constitutional complaint against the new version of the law was initiated by the Union to Save Romania party. “It’s obvious that this law can give authorities the idea of opening criminal cases against political opponents. But the old law could also have been used in such a way,” commented Diana Hatneanu, a lawyer at the Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania – the Helsinki Committee.

EU Observers Say Kosovo Voters Misled by ‘Opaque’ Facebook Pages

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The EU Election Observation Mission said on Tuesday that non-transparent Facebook pages were responsible for “manipulative interference” in Sunday’s mayoral election run-off contests, spreading misinformation about rival parties and candidates, although the polls were well-organised.

“While candidates shared useful information through online platforms, opaque Facebook pages were used to spread misleading content hampering the voters’ ability to form opinions free from manipulative interference,” the Election Observation Mission said in a preliminary assessment of the conduct of the vote.

“Candidates generally used advertisements to promote their campaign platforms but third-party ads were largely used to discredit contestants, including with personal accusations,” the statement added.

The head of the mission, Lucas Mandl, who is member of the European Parliament, told media in Pristina that in general, the run-off elections were “well administered and competitive”.

“The campaign was vivid and peaceful, though its tone was harsher compared to the first round. However, in the absence of sanctions for campaigning outside of the official five-day period, most candidates were canvassing long before the official campaign kicked off,” Mandl said.

The preliminary statement also said that blatant lack of transparency related to the financing of contestants’ campaigns persisted in the second round.

“Perpetuating the low enforcement of campaign finance rules, the Kosovo Assembly is unable to guarantee timely audit of the disclosure reports and the CEC [Central Election Commission] did not sufficiently support the implementation of applicable regulations,” the statement said.

The EU mission said that in the absence of sanctions for campaigning outside of the official five-day period, “most candidates were canvassing long before the official campaign kicked off”.

“Candidate rallies were attended by leaders of the major parties, including by Prime Minister Albin Kurti and his ministers while LVV [ruling Vetevendosje party] candidates often portrayed themselves as the guarantors of projects financed from the central budget. Moreover, between the two rounds, the government announced a temporary increase of social benefits which led to opposition’s accusations of indirect vote buying,” it said.

Voters in 21 out of 38 municipalities went to the polls to elect new mayors in a run-off vote which was held four weeks after 17 mayors were elected in the first round.

The election result produced a disappointment for Vetevendosje, which won only four of the 12 municipalities in which it was competing, and lost in the capital Pristina.

Belgrade-backed Serb party Srpska Lista won the most number of municipalities (ten) followed by the Democratic Party of Kosovo (nine), the Democratic League of Kosovo (seven), the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (five) and the Social Democratic Initiative Nisma (one).

Report: Montenegro Ruling Coalition Hired Offshore Company for Election

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The head of the prominent Montenegrin watchdog MANS, Vanja Calovic Markovic, on Wednesday alleged that most political parties concealed part of their election funding sources and the actual costs of their campaigns for last year’s parliamentary elections.

At the promotion of MANS’ parliamentary election report, Calovic Markovic also said one of the parties in the now ruling For the Future of Montenegro coalition used an offshore company to make camaign videos.

“They hired an offshore company, Limanaki Studios LTD, from Cyprus, to produce videos. That company has not submitted financial reports since its establishment, and its owners are hidden,” Calovic Markovic said, not naming the actual party.

“The contract specifies the given company to do advertising videos for 50,000 euros, without the number of commercials or the deadline by when it must be completed, only the payment deadline,” she added.

In parliamentary elections held on August 30 last year, three opposition blocs won a slender majority of 41 of the 81 seats in parliament, ousting the long-ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS.

New Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokaic led the largest bloc in the now ruling majority, the pro-Serbian For the Future of Montenegro, with the Democratic Front, DF, as its strongest member.

DF officials and the Prime Minister have not commented on the MANS report.

Calovic Markovic said that all the competing electoral lists spent a total of about 245,000 euros on advertising on social networks, almost ten times more than in the 2016 parliamentary elections.

“The administrators on social networks that financed the advertising of certain political structures were exclusively from Serbia,” Calovic Markovic noted.

In December 2020, in its report on the election, the OSCE/ODIHR mission said that Montenegro had not managed to ensure transparency, accountability and integrity of campaign finances, despite changes to electoral laws.

“There is general public mistrust in the campaign finance regulatory system, as currently implemented, and despite some improvements, the legal framework does not establish effective safeguards against corruption or circumvention of campaign finance rules,” the report said.

In its 2020 progress report on the country, the European Commission warned that the electoral legal framework remained largely unchanged since the parliamentary elections in 2016.

“While it provides basic regulations for the conduct of democratic elections, gaps and ambiguities allow for circumvention, particularly in campaign finance,” it observed.

Suspicions about secret camaign funds grew in January 2019, when a video clip from 2016 surfaced in which Dusko Knezevic, chairman of the Montenegro-based Atlas Group, appears to hand the then-mayor of Podgorica, Slavoljub Stijepovic, an envelope containing what Knezevic later said was $200,000 to fund election campaigns.

Knezevic, now believed to be in London, told the media he had been giving the DPS, led by President Milo Djukanovic, such sums for about 25 years, during which time the DPS had never been out of power.

In February 2019, the DPS was fined 20,000 euros and ordered to pay 47,500 euros to the state budget, while in February this year the Higher Court in Podgorica suspended criminal proceedings on Stijepovic.

Albania Prosecutors Investigate Socialists’ Big-Brother-Style Database

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime has summoned Andi Bushati and Armand Shkullaku, owners and editors of Lapsi.al news website, for questioning about a database, purportedly created by the Socialist Party, which contains the names of 910,000 voters in the Tirana region, along with personal data, including employment and family background records in what critics call a massive tracking system.

Bushati said prosecutors asked him where the information came from, and said he had refused to reveal his source, calling the meeting “a short meeting without much substance” while suggesting that the prosecutors should instead investigate how the personal data of the citizens ended up in the hands of a political party.

The prosecutors have not inspected any party office or commented publicly on what they are investigating.

The news about the database revealed last Sunday sent waves across the political spectrum and the population.

Ruling Socialist Party officials acknowledge that the database exists, but insist the data was provided voluntarily by citizens. They have also claimed that the published excerpts are not theirs.

Socialist parliamentary Group Taulant Balla immediately called the news “Lies!”

“The Socialist Party has built its database over years in door-to-door communication with the people,” he added. Days later, he claimed that the database published was not the one belonging to the Socialist Party.

Edi Rama, the Prime Minister, has acknowledged that his party has a “system of patronage” of voters but said their database is more complex and that the one leaked is probably an old one. Other Socialists have denied that the leaked database is theirs at all.

The opposition Democratic Party claims the data included in the database was stolen by the Socialist Party via the government service website E-Albania, where people apply for different services.

Many citizens who have had access to the database claim the data there are those they supplied to state institutions, and say the database seems well updated.

This E-Albania website was used by the government of Prime Minister Rama to issue permission to go outside during the national lockdown in spring 2020. In their forms, citizens had to provide phone numbers and email addresses.

The database, which BIRN had seen, contains some 910,000 entries of names, addresses, birthday, personal ID cards, employment and other data.

For each voter, a party official known as “patronazhist” a word derived from French patronage, is assigned. If they want to know where somebody works, a search in the database can provide that information.

For each voter, there is data on how they voted in the past and what their likely preference is today. In a separate column titled “comments”, party officials write notes on voters.

In one, a party official notes that “the voter requested employment of his wife” while in another, “the voter didn’t thank [the party] for obtaining his house deeds].

Property issues are widespread in Albania and various governments have been criticized for handing over ownership titles as electoral campaign bribes. The issue of such deeds in elections is currently forbidden.

In several cases, officials noted that some voters do not participate in elections because they are “Jehovah Witnesses,” or “extremist Muslims who are not permitted by religion to vote”.

In one case, the comment indicates that voters’ social media pages are checked by officials: “By investigating his Facebook profile, we can conclude he votes for SP,” a note reads while in another case it reads: “This one has previously voted for PDIU party; should be kept under monitoring.”

A note for a voter identified as business owner reads: “We should contact him for his employees”. In another case: The mother of the voter is employed in the municipality”.

Even family conflicts do not escape the observing eye of the party: “Xxx is relative of xxx but they are not on speaking terms,” a note reads.

The Albanian Helsinki Committee, a rights group based in Tirana, underlined that systematic monitoring of voters by a political party may violate the secrecy of the ballot and is especially concerning if done without a voter’s consent.

On Friday, 12 rights organisations called on the authorities to investigate the matter after indicating that at least the law on the Protection of Personal Data had been violated.

“This case is the illegal collection, elaboration and distribution of personal data of some 1 million citizens without their consent,” the statement reads.

While scores of citizens are interested to know which Socialist Party official is tracking them, Big Brother Albanian style apparently does not lack a note of comedy.

In the database, Socialist Party head and PM Rama, is shown as a voter who works at the Councils of Ministers and is under the “patronage” of Elvis Husha, a party official. Husha is under patronage of another party official.

Journalist Andi Bushati, who first exposed the database, said chances are slim that the prosecutors will do their work. “I don’t really believe that the prosecutors will find the truth of this. When a crime appears, it remains without author,” he commented.

Facebook Reveals Cost of Albanian Parties’ and Candidates’ Election Ads

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Facebook has for the first time published a report on what Albanian parties have spent on online advertising on the social media giant during the current parliamentary election campaign.

According to the report, the biggest parties predictably spent more money in sponsored posts for political content than the others.

The biggest advertiser was the ruling Socialist Party, which so far posted 394 ads costing 21,907 US dollars, followed by the main opposition centre-right Democratic Party, which spent 11,536 dollars on 81 ads.

According to BIRN’s calculations, 123,152 dollars was spent on political and social advertising by the parties in all. However, its data show that only 113,252 dollars were actually spent by parties, candidates or sites that distribute political ads. The rest of the ads were from the media and from companies that have been wrongly categorized by Facebook’s algorithm.

Gent Progni a web developer, told BIRN that the total amount spent by each party on FB seems quite low for a target audience of two million people, but the figures change if every candidate or other Facebook page campaigning for a political party is counted.

“The amounts are small for an audience of two million Albanians, looked at from the official websites of the parties. But if you see each candidate in particular, or sites that have just opened and are campaigning for parties, we have a completely different reflection of the amount, which increases several times,” he told BIRN.

According to BIRN, many newly opened Facebook pages are spreading political advertising but their expenses, which are high, are not connected always to parties or political candidates.

Facebook asked Albania to be transparent with political advertising in March during the election campaign by including “paid for by…” in sponsored posts.

Political expert Afrim Krasniqi, head of the Albanian Institute of Political Studies, a think tank based in Tirana, told BIRN that this is the first time an Albanian election campaign is being held more virtually than physically.

“This is why parties and candidates are using social media as the cheapest and fastest source of communication,” he told BIRN.

He added that Albania lacks a strong regulatory legal basis or control mechanism concerning the finances of election campaigns or party propaganda on social media.

A law, “On Political Parties”, only obliges parties to be transparent about their financial resources, while the Central Election Commission is responsible for monitoring and auditing the finances of political parties.

OSCE Chides Kosovo for Preventing Entry of Serbian Journalists

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The OSCE Mission in Kosovo has said it is “concerned” about the recent denial of entry to the country by journalistic crews from Serbia at the Jarinje crossing point.

“Such actions not only contribute to the difficulties that journalists face in conducting their work, but also send a negative message about press freedom and the tolerance for a pluralistic media landscape,” OSCE Kosovo wrote on its Facebook account.

A crew for the Radio Television Serbia TV Show Right to Tomorrow was banned from entering Kosovo on Thursday. The show’s editor, Svetlana Vukumirovic, told RTS they were banned from entering because they did not announce their arrival 72 hours earlier.

“No one ever asked the show’s crew or other journalists to announce themselves in such a way before,” Vukumirovic told RTS.

Earlier, an RTS journalistic team tried to enter Kosovo on February 15, but were also denied permission. Four days later, they were officially banned from entry. The Journalists’ Association of Serbia, UNS, in a press release condemned an “attack on press freedom”.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo and Metohija, which represents Kosovo Serb media, organised a protest on the border line on Wednesday. Association president Budimir Nicic said stopping RTS journalists from entering Kosovo was “classic harassment”.

“This is a classic harassment, this is a classic threat to human rights and media freedoms, this is a violation of all civilization values ​​and norms, and must stop,” Nicic said at the protest.

The Serbian government’s liaison officer with Pristina, Dejan Pavicevic, told the UNS that only senior state officials had an obligation to announce their arrival in advance – not journalists.

“This only applies to top government officials … We will now ask Brussels to take concrete steps because this is a flagrant violation of the [2013 Brussels] Agreement [between Belgrade and Pristina], on freedom of movement and the right of journalists to freedom of reporting,” Pavicevic told UNS.

The Independent Journalist Association of Serbia, NUNS, warned “that the journalistic profession does not serve for political undercutting and collecting points, but to report honestly and credibly on events that are of public importance”.

Kosovo and Serbia reached an agreement about officials’ visits in 2014 that included a procedure for announcing visits of officials from one country to the other. However, both countries have continued stopping officials from entering from the other country, often without explanation.

Concern over Moldova Cyber Security As Election Looms

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

As the campaign for Moldova’s presidential election intensifies, so too does the rate of cyberattacks on state institutions in the former Soviet republic, torn between Russia and the West.

But while Moldova’s Intelligence and Security Service, SIS, says it is working to disrupt cyberattacks, critics say more needs to be done to confront the scourge of fake news and disinformation.

“Moldova does not have a strategy to tackle propaganda, nor clear policies for the protection of the information space,” said Cornelia Cozonac, head of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Moldova.

“Moldovan politicians are not even trying to take over similar research-based guidelines from the Baltic States, for example.”

Individual hackers

In an interview for Moldpres, SIS director Alexandr Esaulenco said that election campaigns in Moldova frequently brought an “intensification” of cyberattacks on state bodies handling the electoral process.

In written comments to BIRN, the SIS described four types of attacks since 2015 – denial of service, or DDOS, phishing via state e-mail, brute-force attacks trying to gain access to government information systems and the hijacking of official web pages.

“These activities aim to stop or hinder the conduct of the electoral process, but in all these cases, we act proactively to prevent their success,” Esaulenco told Moldpres.

In an interview with tribuna.md in October, Sergiu Popovici, the director of the government Information Technology and Cyber Security Service, STISC, said most attacks were the work of individual hackers, “who try out their criminal talent on randomly selected electoral processes.”

‘Real propaganda’

Esaulenco, a 43-year-old major general, previously worked as a security adviser to Moldova’s pro-Russian president, Igor Dodon.


A person scrolls the screen of a mobile phone while loading information on how to counter ‘fake news’ in New Delhi, India, May 2, 2019. Photo: EPA/Harish Tyagi

Dodon is bidding for a second term in next month’s election but faces a strong challenge from pro-European candidate Maia Sandu.

The SIS press office told BIRN that, while it confronts the threat of cyberattacks, its future focus would be more on disinformation and propaganda.

Torn between integrating with the West or remaining in Russia’s orbit, Moldova has proven particularly vulnerable to outside propaganda, particularly against NATO, the European Union and the international community in general.

The SIS said that during the COVID-19 state-of-emergency in the spring, it closed some 61 websites and news portals deemed to be spreading propaganda and fake news regarding the pandemic.

But Petru Macovei, executive director of the Independent Press Association, API, said SIS did not go far enough.

“It was a facade with the closure of those sites, to justify themselves that their activity was not in vain during the state of emergency caused by the pandemic,” Macovei told BIRN. “Indeed, it was neither effective nor sufficient.”

These “were selective decisions,” he said, “because the real propaganda was not affected by that SIS measure.”

By ‘real propaganda,’ many experts in Moldova mean Russian media outlets that broadcast in Moldova with a distinctively anti-Western tone.

“Russian media in Moldova like Komsomolskaya Pravda or Sputnik every day have at least one anti-EU and NATO news and some about Ukraine,” said Cozonac.

Strategy lacking

Elena Marzac, executive director of the Information and Documentation Centre on NATO, IDC NATO, said that COVID-19 crisis and the economic fallout were “gradually turning into a security crisis.”


The executive director of the IDC NATO in Moldova, Elena Marzac. Photo: Facebook

“Besides classic disinformation there are also the cyberattacks, both elements of hybrid warfare,” Marzac told BIRN.

“Also, the narratives circulating in the international space, but also the regional and national one are strongly influenced by geopolitics, and the main promoting actors in that sense are China and Russia.”

Moldova has made some progress towards establishing the legal basis for a better information security strategy, but experts agree there is still much to be done.

“It is too early to talk about the existence in Moldova of an integrated and effective national mechanism for preventing and combating cybersecurity incidents and cybercrime,” said Marzac.

Facebook Tightens Rules on Political Ads in Montenegro

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Advertisers who want to run ads about social issues, elections or politics in Montenegro on Facebook will face new tightened, restrictive rules from Thursday, ahead of August 30 parliamentary elections and in line with Facebook’s new transparency regulations, promoted last year.

Advertisers will now have to complete a new authorizations process. It applies to anyone who wants to create or edit ads targeting Montenegro and that reference political figures, political parties or elections.

The social media giant explained that such ads will now also be marked “Paid for by…” as a disclaimer, showing who paid for the specific political ad. To get authorization for such promotions, Facebook will ask for government-issued ID and two official documents.

“We’ll also use it to help detect and prevent risks such as impersonation or ID theft, which helps to keep you and our community safe. It won’t be shared on your profile, in ads or with other admins of your Pages or ad accounts,” Facebook said on its official page.

“We require that the advertiser provide additional information, like a local business address, local phone number, email and website, if they choose to use their organization or Page name in the disclaimer. These requirements hold advertisers accountable for the ads they run on Facebook and Instagram,” the social media giant wrote on its Facebook for Business website.

Political parties in Montenegro have often used social media in ways that are far from transparent during elections and without proper insight about the money spent and audience targeted.

In March, Facebook added Montenegro and some other Balkan countries to the list of regions that will be subject to new political transparency rules.

Enforcement of the new regulations was announced for mid-March, about a month before scheduled parliamentary elections in Serbia and North Macedonia. In the event, both the elections and implementation of the new regulations were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

North Macedonia’s Ruling Party Won Twitter War in Election

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Largely because the COVID-19 outbreak reduced classical campaigning and election rallies, the main political blocs at the July 15 early general elections invested serious attention in social media and in Twitter campaigns.

But what happened within the social network bubbles did not always reflects accurately real life, or the election results.

Despite being twice as active on Twitter, the ruling alliance led by the Social Democrats under Zoran Zaev, pulled off only a wafer-thin victory at the polls, winning 46 of the 120 seats in parliament, just two more than their right-wing rivals in VMRO DPMNE.

BIRN’s comparative analysis on the tweets of the party candidates and the use of their punchline hashtags, done with the help of SHARE foundation, reveals several characteristics.

When it came to their official hashtags, such as “We Can” and “We Care”, used by the Social Democrats, and “Choose Renewal” and “Rise Up Macedonia”, used by VMRO DPMNE, the former were clearly dominant, for example. Ruling alliance hashtags could be seen on more than 5,600 tweets. Those of the opposition were found in just over 2,100.

Yet their strategies were very similar, with party leaders and the electoral lists’ heads in the six electoral districts posting the initial electoral propaganda, and sympathizers disseminating it.

Only some party sympathizers used their personal profiles with their names clearly displayed. Most posts were retweeted by profiles using pseudonyms or just codenames. Thus, one assumption is that these were automatized profiles, or bots.

One difference between them was that the posting of tweets was more evenly spread in the ruling party bloc.

While Social Democratic leader Zaev led the process, much of the party’s communication also originated from other prominent figures, such as Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov, Vice Prime Minister Mila Carovska, Defence Minister Radmila Shekerinska, provisional PM Oliver Spasovski and others – most of them leading the lists of candidates in the six electoral districts.

In the opposition bloc, most of the traffic originated from the profile of the VMRO DPMNE leader, Hristijan Mickoski, or from the official party twitter profile. Compared to these two, the activity of the other opposition party officials was negligible.


Illustration depicting the twitter interactions between the two political blocs: BIRN

While most Twitter posts on Zaev’s profile referred to the alliance’s own campaign points and promises, some 10 per cent were reserved for negative campaigning against the opposition.

Among these negative posts, most suggested that if VMRO DPMNE came back to power, it would mean a “return of the regime” – referencing the authoritarian government of former VMRO DPMNE leader and former prime minister Nikola Gruevski.

Most of the tweets from the profile of opposition leader Mickoski also focused on election promises and on parts of the party’s manifesto. But about 13 per cent of tweets were devoted to attacking the other side.

The most common tweets attacking the Social Democrats referred to alleged “crimes” committed by Zaev, mostly drawing on connections to the high-profile “Extortion” trial in which the former head of the Special Prosecution, SJO, Katica Janeva – once strongly supported by Zaev – and others were found guilty of extortion.

Other posts accused Zaev of undermining the national interest by presiding over important friendship deals with neighbouring Bulgaria and the historic “name” agreement with Greece.

The analysis shows that nine of the ten most shared posts during the campaign were those of Social Democratic officials, with Zaev’ post sharing the official video commercial of their campaign, in which the party says it has achieved a lot and can do even more, being most shared.

The opposition leader posted the tenth most shared post as well. In it, he shared a video advertisement in which he implored young people to stay in the country and to “fight for Macedonia”.

Analyzing overall Twitter communications during the election campaign, Zaev’s name was mentioned most often. His profile was mentioned in 3,100 posts, while that of the opposition leader Mickoski was mentioned in 1,580.

Despite the bitter electoral war waged on Twitter by both blocs and their supporters, neither bloc got exactly what it sought.

Zaev did not win a comfortable majority for a new government to accomplish his promised changes.

Mickoski also failed to persuade enough voters that it was time he took over and started to “strengthen the spines” of the country’s supposedly humiliated citizens.

North Macedonia Probes Election Day Cyber Attacks

Posted on by ivana.nikolic

Authorities in North Macedonia have announced an investigation into election day’s cyber attack while experts are still puzzled about how the attack occurred on July 15, targeting the website of the state election commission, SEC, and the news aggregator website.

“It is not clear whether the [SEC] website was tested to withstand a large amount of connections for a short period of time, and whether it had the necessary DDoS protection,” cyber-security engineer Milan Popov told BIRN on Friday.

The Interior Ministry confirmed that it is looking into the matter. “The SEC reported the case and, immediately after the report, the Sector for Computer Crime and Digital Forensics took measures and activities to clear up the case,” ministry spokesman Toni Angelovski told BIRN.

Polling day on July 15 saw two of the highest profile cyber attacks the country has ever seen. In a single night, both the election commission’s website and the most popular news aggregator, TIME.mk, were brought down for several hours.

While TIME.mk quickly recovered, the SEC website is still having difficulties functioning. According to the SEC head, Oliver Derkovski, the attack probably came from abroad.

“We informed the Interior Ministry about this cybercrime. They were here today and I hope they will resolve it soon. It was an attack from abroad,” Derkovski said.

The IT company that runs the SEC election results page section, Duna Computers, said its own application functions flawlessly and the main issue came from the SEC website experiencing a sophisticated cyber attack.

The second cyber attack of the night, the denial of service, DDoS, attack that hit TIME.mk, involved more than 35 million addresses that generated thousands of clicks per second.

“There were brief interruptions but mostly the site withstood the attack. Unfortunately, we did not have the best protection, and this was our mistake, which we have corrected, so that it will not happen again,” the website’s founder, Igor Trajkovski, wrote on Twitter.

“I can say for sure that, for the second part of the attack, someone is connected to one of the sites that we index, because that is the only way through which they can find out our IP address,” Trajkovski added.

Unlike the SEC cyber attack, responsibility for this one was claimed by a hacker group that uses a logo similar to that of the famous hacktivist group Anonymous, and calls itself “Anonopsmkd”.

The group left a message in which it voiced displeasure with the election process in the country, and said it had targeted the TIME.mk website mostly because of its popularity. Regarding the group itself, information is scarce. However, in their message, they warned ominously that they are ready to strike again, and that they “neither forgive nor forget”.

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