Political parties’ websites, candidates’ blogs, online promotion campaigns are inefficient tools in communication relation with Romanian voters, according to politicians and spin doctors who attended Politica 2.0 event. On the other hand, foreigners are optimistic and bring forward successful formulas that seem inapplicable in domestic political landscape.
Internet and computers use has changed the way politicians interact with the public, according to Zsolt Nagy, former minister of Technology and Communication, who divides the history of Romanian election campaigns into B.C (before computer) and A.C (after computer) eras. In 1996, when Nagy led the national election campaign, he and his colleagues in UDMR considered the computer exclusively as electronic typing machine. However, things have changed in 2000, when first websites of political parties emerged, and partisans were briefed on the evolution of the campaign via text message.
In 2004, Nagy’s party used intranet and was active on forums. “I can say we assigned 8% effort, time and party’s human resources to electronic component. And I don’t mean money,” former minister said. In 2008, social networks, blogs, text messages and e-mails are now the “secret weapons” in the rally for the presidential chair.
Online communication, remains, however, inefficient, as long as in local election interval, the traffic ranking of candidates’ webpages saw no illustrative outcome: cozmingusa.info ranked first with 4400 daily visitors in average, emilboc.ro, only 12 visitors. Gusa came out with less than 6% votes for Bucharest City Hall, while Boc won Cluj’s City Hall with 75% votes.
Adriana Saftoiu, former spokesperson of Romanian president, at present runner for Deputy Chamber is more radical in statements: “In the digital era, the material gifts are the secret weapons”. In a country wherein half of the
