In Mexico, politicians have began using social media to campaign. But they seem baffled as to how to deal with angry voters.
State Governor Enrique Peña Nieto, potentially the next presidential candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), stopped using Twitter when voters got cranky. “Twitter demands more horizontal communication and more dialogue, more exposure to criticism,” says one blog that reviewed how Peña Nieto’s handlers chose Facebook, where a clique of fans is more acceptable.
But the one politician who has forged ahead on Twitter is Manuel Lopez Obrador, the 2012 presidential candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party. According to Rendon who measured both candidates use of Twitter, Lopez Obrador, is prolific in this medium. To date he has almost 56,000 followers.
If you’re measuring the number of followers, the winner is President Felipe Calderon, with 400,000 followers. But on Twitter, power and influence is measured by the amount of retweets and the winner in this category — despite having only 17,000 — followers is Gerardo Fernandez Noroña, a congressman for the leftist Workers Party PT. Fernandez Noroña’s appeal is that he argues with his followers; those who dare to contradict him are targeted with colorful language.
In the last two years, Twitter has become a big hit in Mexico. When it was launched few in Mexico thought it would take off. But in 2009, it had 32,000 accounts. By January 2010, this had grown to 146,000 accounts. By June 2010, the number had jumped to 1,835,372 accounts.
As media analyst and academic Maria Elena Meneses says, 2012, the year of the next presidential election, will be the year of Twitter in Mexico.
Online social networks will be serious players during the next year’s Mexican presidential elections. Electoral reform pushed through in 2008 means Mexican political parties cannot advertise on television. “That reform has totally changed elections in this country,” says Maria Elena Meneses, an elections and internet expert from university Tecnologico de Monterrey. According to Meneses, because political parties are cut off from such a massive media outlet they will turn to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in future elections.
Mexico’s electoral reform came after 2006’s presidential election debacle when the presidential candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, accused the winner, Felipe Calderon, of the Action Party, PAN, of fraud. Amidst claims of missing votes 1.1m people marched through Mexico city to protest against electoral fraud
Underlying these charges were accusations that the PAN had used television spots that to suggest Lopez Obrador was similar to Hitler.
But the internet also played a key role in 2006. High volumes of hate mail were circulated about all candidates, but most was negative targeted Lopez Obrador. According to a poll, voters received more electoral propaganda disparaging the PRD presidential candidate. On the other side, a computer savvy voter set up a YouTube video that showed dubbed clips of the movie Madagascar in which a computer animated raccoon figure asked for a recounting of the electoral votes. Close to a million viewers watched the clip.
The key claim from the Lopez Obrador campaign was that the 2006 presidential election was manipulated by the various ruling party state secretaries around the country.
In 2009, candidates in the provincial elections for state governorships and congress used Twitter to establish followings, but according to Meneses, they won’t be the only medium in the 2012 elections. “Twitter and Facebook will appeal to the working masses and to youth. The campaign will be dirty — dirtier than it was when it was conducted on television,” claims Meneses.
Part of the problem in Mexico is connected to the fact politicians are not used to having a conversation with voters. “In Mexico, we continue to have political relationships that not vibrant and do not embrace interaction with the electorate” she said.
Index on Censorship’s Mike Harris took part in a discussion on the use of social media and protest at the Frontline Club on Tuesday night with Sina Motalebi of BBC Persian TV, Sunny Hundal of Liberal Conspiracy, Benjamin Chesterton of Duckrabbit, and Mexico Reporter founder Deborah Bonello. Watch it below
Mexican politicians are seeking to regulate the use of social media, like Twitter, Facebook or Myspace. They claim Mexican users are using these sites to avoid drunk-driving checkpoints.
