Election campaign
Election campaign
Although campaigns for multiparty elections have been occurring in Bulgaria for 15 years now, most of them still have two major flaws – they tend to be flat and inconspicuous, or conversely – extra aggressive in their style and scope. And it is precisely these shortcomings that sharply decrease parties’ abilities to attract the hesitant or the passive voters. The campaign for European Elections 2009 makes no exception.
For the first time in Bulgaria, in addition to the traditional parties’ campaigns, there are advertisements of the European Parliament, aiming at increasing the interest in the European vote and the electoral turnout. However, the advertisements of this campaign have been noticed by barely 13% of the Bulgarian citizens.
The most aware of the European advertisements are the freelancers (29%), and in terms of party affiliation – the supporters of NMSS and the Greens. For the majority of the people, though, the totem of the campaign “the frozen chicken” has remained unnoticed or misunderstood Thus, this campaign fits in the framework of the negative characteristics mentioned above – low visibility, poor comprehension, and low impact.
More noticeable and more distinguishable are the campaigns of the Bulgarians parties running for the European elections. 39% of the respondents recall specific events or materials, other 24% have vague ideas of their advertisements, but here again 37% of the people remain beyond the reach of any agitation. Paying more attention to the campaign and respectively been more involved in the campaign are the supporters of Blue Coalition (53%).
The attitude towards the election activities displayed in the media is strongly polarized, which speaks about the contradictory effect of the campaigns.
Extremely favorable of the political advertisements are the loyal followers of the different parties (the approval rate reaches 69% among the followers of BSP, 71% among the followers of RZS, 63% - of Blue Coalition and etc.) This clearly shows that the current campaign affects the core voters the most and the hesitant or the passive voters the least.
The coverage that the parties’ campaigns have achieved, measured by the traces they have left in people’s minds, make several campaigns stand out that are very different by their type. On one hand are BSP and RZS, who are overly active in media. BSP’s video, regarding the government’s achievements, appeared long time before the official start of the campaign, while Yane Yanev and RZS's advertisements occupied unproportionally large space for a newly born political party, without significant financial backup. On the other hand are GERB and Ataka, which are clearly discernible in people’s minds, though they have more modest media campaigns.
The analysis shows that the campaigns could change the vote of about 5 to 10 percent of the supporters of similar parties, which in a case of a low turnout could come to be decisive for gaining a mandate. We should bear in mind, though, that the level of public support for a given party also affects the ranking above, since its increases the discernability of the party and its advertising messages. This relationship is not a direct one, though. On the contrary, it is not the core supporters of the party, but those of the opposition who are more impressed by its election activities.
In this respect the most important indicator for the success of a given campaign is its effectiveness i.e. to what extent it succeeds in provoking positive attitude towards the political party, which its represents. The coefficient of advertising campaigns’ effectiveness displayed below is correlation between the approval rates for the respective political party and the number of people it has reached. The closer the coefficient to 0, the more ineffective the campaign i.e. even if the campaign has reached a large number of citizens it has not provoked in them positive attitudes towards the party.
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As it is seen from the comparison of the coefficients of effectiveness, BSP, although being the most visible in the media, has twice lower results than GERB. Right behind are RZS and Ataka. The traditionally more focused campaign of MRF once again attacks its typical voters. The campaign of Blue Coalition is very motivating for its supporters, but it has not managed to generate higher rate of public approval. Enclosed among their core supporters are also NMSS, NAPRED and LIDER.
The campaigns of the parties with an increasing coefficient of effectiveness are those, who tend to attract the hesitant voters, while those with a decreasing coefficient are in the unenviable position to serve as an electoral reserve for the former. During the campaign the vote dynamics could turn out to be decisive for the outcome. To recall: Alpha Research Exit Poll data from the EU elections in 2007 showed that 12% of the voters had made their choice whom to vote for during the campaign and 26% had decided only in its last few days.
Legend:
GERB – Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria
BSP – Bulgarian Socialist Party
MRF – Movement for Rights and Freedom
Ataka
Blue Coalition - Coalition between UDF (Union of Democratic Forces) and DSB (Democrats for Strong Bulgaria)
RZS - Order, Law, Justice
NMSS – National Movement “Simeon II”
NAPRED-VMRO - Coalition between IMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) , Agrarian Union and Gergyovden
LIDER
