By Alfred Peza
After making two postings, one after the other in the past few days in his official Facebook page, everyone thought that the former President, Bujar Nishani was returning to active politics. In this new season, between the general tradition that exists in liberal democracies, where the post of the head of the state is considered as the peak and the last political post for an important actor and the dilemma for political engagement, it seems that his involvement in active politics has won. During an interview at the end of his term in office, Nishani said that “I don’t see myself retiring to my private life”. So, he left three options open:
- Involvement in politics
- In civil society
- Or in organizations which are equidistant from political parties, but, which serve politics
“It still remains to be seen. It’s too early to decide”, he concluded. While it’s not been even a month since he left office, the “enigma” has been resolved. It was his official Facebook page, his postings and the political language used in it that clarified us about the future of the former President. Due to a massive use of social networks, not only journalists, but every other person who has access or wants to follow the dynamic of political developments, can use Facebook as a mirror to follow not only the daily activity of the main players, but also to understand through it their “plans” for the future. The same thing can also be said for other options offered by the internet, where different social services have turned into an irreplaceable instrument of communication between those who are elected and their voters.
Based on a recent study by Internet World Stat, also published by out media three days ago, Albania has 1.4 million Facebook users, “a figure which accounts for almost 50% of the population, living inside the country”. If we recall the fact that there are more Albanians who live outside than inside of Albania, then we can easily imagine that the number of Facebook addresses that Albanians use is many times higher and it’s thought to exceed 2 million. This is not just an Albanian sport, if we bear in mind the fact that the average number of users per capita, ranks us 22nd in Europe. Meanwhile, the level of Internet penetration is 62.6%, ranking us 37th in Europe.
At the start of August, based on an opinion poll conducted by the Serb based newspaper, Danas, PM Edi Rama was ranked as one of the three most liked Prime Ministers in social networks in Europe, based on the number of followers in their official pages. Before him there was the German chancellor, Angela Merkel with 2.5 million followers, followed by Russian PM, Dmitry Medvedev with 1.5 million followers on Facebook. Today, the Albanian PM has over 1 million and 120 million followers and an endless number of comments in each posting that he makes. The last on the list was the Slovakian PM with 4 thousand and 604 followers.
The fact that in a country such as Germany with a population of over 80 million people, only 40% use Facebook and in a country such as Russia with over 143 million people, only 7,5% of them use it, is a clear indicator that Albanians are very active when it comes to politics. On the other hand, the activity of the main politicians in social networks is one of the main sources of information for traditional and online media too and this boosts interaction between those who produce the news and those who convey, comment and analyze news for the general public.
Perhaps this is the reason why, by following their daily activity on Facebook (but also in Twitter, etc), one can see who is the most disappointed from the June 25 elections and who isn’t. Who has spent his holidays in July and who has spent them in August. There are also some of those who, by exploiting the vacuum created by the activity of the others, have continued to be active in social networks, telling the public that they haven’t been on holidays, although, they’ve actually been spending their holidays thousands of kilometers way from Albania.
During the time he was chairman of SMI and speaker of Parliament, Ilir Meta preferred traditional communication to communicate with the citizen or the supporters of his party. Therefore, the media could not ignore the news of his opening an official Facebook page on 24 July, on the day that he entered office.
Astrit Patozi has been more active in social networks since the list of the Democratic Party’s candidates for Parliament for the June 25 elections was made official. The fact that he was not included in the list of the candidates for the new Parliament, made him part of a strong political and public battle against the leader of the DP, Lulzim Basha. His Facebook has been an active window of communication not only with his followers and the media, but also with his opponents.
The same thing can also be said for Jozefina Topalli, who, during the time that she was speaker of Parliament (2005-2013), was almost inactive in social networks. During the past four years of the DP in opposition, her activity in social networks has been increasing. More so after the deepening of the crisis and her clashes with opponents within the party.
Before he took a decision to leave the SP and create LIBRA Party, Ben Blushi had opted not to become part of the virtual community of social networks. Despite being a journalist and writer, he had direct communication with the people, supporters and his political opponents. As we know, he and the other candidates of his party could not win any seats in the new Parliament. After sporadic declarations in traditional or online media, Blushi is almost inactive in his official Facebook page. This is a clear sign of his dilemma for the future of his political engagement. The same thing can also be said about the leader of PJIU, Shpetim Idrizi, who has had more postings in his official page, but they were mainly products of other people. As far as Lulzim Basha is concerned, from what we can read from the intensity and the political quality of his postings, we understand that he’s enjoying his August holidays. Perhaps he’s taking time to relax after the exhaustion caused to him by the defeat in the June 25 elections and above all, the victory in the elections for the leader of DP held on 22 July. But he has always something that consoles him when it comes to his relations with his voters and supporters of DP in social networks, for as long as Sali Berisha remains the most active along with Edi Rama on Facebook. The good Doctor has shown that not even now, but also when there was no internet, that he communicated and continues to communicate with people, even when he shouldn’t.
Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy
