17 Feb 2012 | Americas, Mexico
Mexican politicians are using social networks in sleight of hand similar to the ones they used in elections before the age of technology, say critics. Instead of paying voters to show up for the vote, or stuffing boxes — known practices in previous mid-term or presidential elections — today’s savvy campaign managers are helping their candidates swell up their numbers of Twitter followers and Facebook “likes”.
“They are doing online what they used to do offline,” according to Maria Elena Meneses, a media expert and professor at the Tecnologico de Monterrey who has studied elections and the Internet.
The campaign of ruling party presidential candidate Josefina Vasquez Mota drew much criticism after it allegedly used an internet bot to create a trending topic during recent elections to select the presidential candidate for the ruling Partido de Accion Nacional. News magazine Procesoreported that news sites that had measured the growth of the Vasquez Mota’s followers could determine how many of them were obtained through the bots.
Despite this criticism, Vasquez Mota seems to have one of the best online media teams. Her approach is similar to that used by US President Barak Obama in his 2008 presidential elections. The team’s use of various hashtags to trigger a trending topic, including the hashtag #HoyganaJosefina, which means “today Josefina wins”, helped expand her followers list by 31,000 in only a few hours in late January during her party’s internal election process (detractors say this is where the campaign used bots). The candidate’s Facebook page also has a lot of young followers.
Meneses says it is estimated that 15 million Internet users in Mexico are between the ages of 18 and 34. The young vote will be the more difficult to harness in the next presidential elections in July: 34 million new voters who turned 18 between 2006 and this year will be voting this presidential election.
But the presidential campaigns have a wooden Internet presence. Enrique Peña Nieto, the presidential candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose party ruled Mexico for 70 years until 2000, uses YouTube, but, Meneses says, not in a way that would attract young voters. “They only tape their campaign presentations. There is no give and take with the audience, which is what young voters want,” she says.
Meneses says none of the three presidential candidates for the three major parties — the PAN, the PRI and the left of center Partido Revolucionario Democratico, (PRD) — are using social media effectively to reach and communicate with common citizens. “They could use those sites to respond to uncomfortable questions,” she insists.
19 Dec 2011 | Russia
The first meeting of Russia’s newly elected State Duma will be held on 21 December. Tens of thousands of Russians protested the parliamentary elections, based on claims that they were unfair. This week protesters will take to the streets again with a rally against election fraud on 24 December.
The European Parliament echoed the protesters’ concerns, and passed a resolution calling for new parliamentary elections in Russia, as well as a thorough investigation into all reports of alleged fraud on elections held on 4 December. The Russian authorities rejected the EU parliament’s intervention.
Prime-minister Vladimir Putin said the protesters had been paid to attend the 10 December rally, which was the biggest in post-Soviet Russia. Putin added that opposition leaders had referred to them as “sheep” from the stage. Both allegations are untrue. President Dmitry Medvedev said that the EU parliament resolution supporting protestants’ demands “meant nothing”, and former deputy head of State Duma international committee Leonid Slutsky told ITAR-TASS news agency that the resolution was “gross interference in the affairs of a sovereign state”.
The controversial resolution mostly covered the context of the recent elections, but it also highlighted “concerns, regarding the human rights situation in Russia, the rule of law, independence of the judiciary and the repressive measures taken against journalists and the opposition”.
The resolution merely captured the bitter truth of the situation, as proved by events last week. In the Republic of Dagestan — a federal subject of Russia — journalist Khadzhimurad Kamalov, founder of Chernovik, an opposition newspaper, was shot outside his office on 15 December. Kamalov was remembered as a brave man, respected for the risks he took by investing in the independent media. He inspired people to write about corruption and human rights abuse in North Caucasus. His colleagues along with Memorial, an international human rights society said his murder was “political” and motivated by his work. His articles and investigations he made public in Chernovik were widely quoted in Dagestan. Makhachkala city administration filed an open letter to Kamalov in September, accusing him of “libel, deception and mutual distrust fomentation”, which Chernovik journalists regarded as an attempt to silence them.
The detention of one of Russia’s opposition leaders, Sergey Udaltsov further confirms the statements of the EU parliament resolution. Udaltsov was arrested on 4 December while attempting to protest in the rally against violations of election laws, and sentenced to administrative arrest until 25 December. Since his arrest, Udaltsov has been on a dry hunger strike, and his health is under serious threat according to his wife and attorney. He is now in the resuscitation department of one of Moscow’s hospitals. Human rights activists and opposition leaders have expressed concern for his life.
Musician Vassily Shumov, also famous for having held a concert to support music critic Art Troitsky, planned to hold a concert in support of Sergey Udaltsov and other prisoners rights activists considered to be “political”, but was suddenly rejected by the club which had previously agreed to carry it out. Shumov suggested that the club might have declined to participate based on pressure from the authorities.
Opposition leaders, rights activists and public figures are now preparing for the rally on 24 December. It is meant to be the public’s response to authorities, who have ignored their demands to set political prisoners free, hold new and fair parliamentary elections, and to protect freedom of expression. Their primary objective is to encourage citizens to overcome fears of repression for expressing their views, and to build confidence in their ability to influence Russian government policy through publicly expressing their discontent. Christmas Eve will determine whether or not they succeed.
24 Oct 2011 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Tunisians flocked to voting stations yesterday in the country’s first-ever free elections, but only the cultivation of an independent media will safeguard democracy and free expression, writes Rohan Jayasekera
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29 Jul 2011 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost, News and features
Kyrgyzstan’s Central Elections Committee (CEC) has decided to bar web-based news media from participating in the campaign ahead of the 30th October presidential election. Eleven news sites have been denied accreditation to inform voters on pre-election developments. While some NGOs have claimed the move restricts citizens’ access to information, a CEC spokeswoman said, “the Kyrgyz law on mass media does not regard web-based news agencies as media outlets; that is why they cannot generate revenue from promotion of the candidates.”
The decision comes just weeks after Kyrgyzstan became the first country in former Soviet Central Asia to decriminalise libel, a move hailed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as a boost for press freedom.
