Global Courant 2023-04-11 19:17:10
Mass rallies, lunches and dinners with the electorate, fervent supporters on the streets with party and national flags, candidate posters, even television advertisements.
The electoral campaign in Albania has gone through several stages since the country began to have a pluralist system, after the fall of the communist regime.
More and more in these years, the essence of the election campaigns of political parties in Albania has been the closeness of the leader to the people. Be it by having lunch in the village where the leader tastes the products of the area, to show that he is “equal to the people” or that the problems of the electorate are discussed “knee to knee with the people”.
To be closer to the people, the leaders have even gone to buy pies or show the difficulties of their lives to reach where they are today. In fact, Albanian politics in a certain period also applied a campaign method borrowed from the American one, such as their halls, where voters have the opportunity to express their concerns, by giving opinions, but also by directly asking the representatives of the political parties .
With the passing of years and the advancement of information technology, the campaign has also changed. The times when journalists would leave early in the morning with a leader to go to a distant place to cover their campaign seem distant. Now everything is centered on the Internet. Livestream from the leaders, presentation of candidates, crying of the people’s problems by answering the questions left by the public in the comments, sponsoring posts on social networks and even podcasts.
What can be said for sure is that electoral campaigning in Albania has changed. Not that political parties don’t connect with their electorate, but the way they connect is now more via the internet.
Global Courantl