I already reported about main candidate lists for the EP and now, as Nikola suggested, is time to see what tools the parties use for communication with their potential voters. Web campaigning from my perspective displays the awareness of the political parties about the importance of IT tools in political process and can also in an easy way underline a potential link between a party and its belonging to a certain European political group. So, what do I notice on the Slovenian political web ground?
Coalition
Firstly, I analyzed the web sites of the coalitional political parties:
SD: The winning centre-left political party which belongs to the PES group finally presented its candidate list, but it does not bother a lot with web campaigning. The party which is especially aware of the power of blogging about national issues, has not dedicated a special attention to EP elections. The candidates for MEP’s do not address their voters with additional supportive social networks and they provide only one video clip which basically only briefly shows the candidates. In this way, web campaigning of the ruling party can be considered as almost invisible.
ZARES: The party which belongs to ALDE group already for some time leads some blogging debates about EU and EP elections and has also attached a visible banner about the upcoming political event. Zares has a link to its candidate list and to ELDR manifesto. However, also this party does not provide any information about the use of social networks.
DESUS: This party seems to underestimate the use of web campaigning or it simply counts on the fact that its electoral body, which is constituted mostly of retired population, might be less skilled in IT use. Anyway, it seems that in general the party does not have a big interest in EP elections as the only noticed post regarding the event announces the chosen candidate list.
LDS: In comparison with the other coalition partners, the Liberal Party seems to have big hopes for these elections which results in a “web conscious” campaigning. The web site includes a special section named “EU Elections” and also extensively uses Facebook. Also this party provides a connection to the ELDR manifesto and some information on current events on the EU level that might be relevant for national voters. My personal observation is that party which in the last mandate had 2 MEP’s in the EP has developed a higher awareness about the elections and according to this, tries to communicate with potential voters in all possible ways.
Opposition
Also the oppositional parliamentary parties launched their web campaigning, but as in the previous case, their intensity differs:
SDS: The biggest oppositional party has presented the candidate list on the web and announced a special post about work of their MEP Jordan Cizelj who was recognized as the most hard-working representative in the Slovenian club during the last mandate. The party use of Facebook is also a regular connection between the supporters and the party candidates, however the web site does not focus special attention to the upcoming elections.
SLS: This party just recently presented MEP candidates and has rather poor update about the elections. It seems they had a good intention to use web tools, as they advertise also networking through facebook, but has not done much in this respect.
SNS: This party does not show any interest for the elections and in the web site is not possible to find any news about the EU. This is definitely not surprising, having in mind the nationalist orientation of the party.
“The Non – Parliamentary hope”
NSi: The party which after the last national elections did not reach the threshold to enter to the parliament in a first stance has to gather the necessary signs to enter into the EP electorate battle. The party has 2 “trump cards” for the elections, already well-known MEP’s who will try to be re-elected also this time. NSi has a high consciousness about web advertising and as LDS; it also opened a special section focused on the EP elections. They even inserted a counter of the days until the elections and the candidates use social networks, such as facebook and youtube in communication with their potential voters.
Conclusion
The parties mostly use their web sites for basic announcements about the EP elections, but only in 2 cases directly address the voters with a special EP section. And what I have not mentioned regarding the campaigning? Yes, you are right: they do not have direct links to the common European campaigns which reassures a well known, bitter national taste….
(10 votes, average: 4.30 out of 5)
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Hi Tania, so there are no EP campaigns at all in Slovenia - do I unterstand you correctly? They must have different key approaches concerning European policies?
No, it’s not a problem in campaigning as such, parties of course presented their candidate lists and also use the EP banners etc. But from my point of view, I don’t see any connection with a broader campaigning, e.g. liberals in ALDE context or SD in PES context-this link is missing in all web sites. I’d suspect that if we talk about the European event that they’ll not have only the campaigning of their own party for the elections in the EP, but a particular party in connection with a particular political group. But let’s see how this will develop in this month…
Update: the parties have now extensively begun with the campaigning and according to this the web sites have been improved. The main message of my post is still the same: mainly there’s no major link with pan-European (political groups) campaigns, but at the same time I noticed some improvements in using social networks as a campaigning approach and also some good presentations of individual candidates. I approached one of the candidates and in case she’ll agree to present her campaign also on thinkaboutit, I’ll demonstrate her views and also the program which after my opinion points on the connection between national and European level. so, hopefully more in the next post…