He commented on reactions caused by Positive’s decision to vote confidence, saying that they are full of insults, explaining that last two decades of ”studying democracy, diversity and multi-party system” seem to not have been enough to achieve a certain standard in political communication.
“Taking into account obvious lack of political decency, desire and will to respect a political opponent – we can not be surprised by heated arguments in public and on social networks. The atmosphere where everyone can say whatever they want is a fake democracy with no standards”, Šćekić said.
As the only expert in our country dealing with political propaganda and spin campaigns, Šćekić says that the history of political propaganda in Montenegro is a proof that this situation on social networks did not just come to be, but is a product of a society which has a lack of tradition in political diversity, it is a part of atmosphere of economic collapse, nationalist feelings rising, war environment.
“Projecting into public political ideas, agendas, policies and attitudes was at first done by rough populist tactics, mass demonstrations of political support, it was done from the street, in order to demonstrate openness. Later, when they started imitating global trends, projecting political ideas got more subtle and modern forms. Political marketing that was up to then based on presenting agendas, ideas and candidates at party meetings, promotional events, etc. took a turn and shifted to media marketing, using propaganda videos and similar. Certain political propaganda techniques, depending on the time period, were more dominant and visible (observed when it comes to emotional manipulation of voters), with certain modifications that took into account environment and mentality”, Šćekić explained.
He says that complete political scene was based on simplifying the image of the world by creating a villain figure and blame shifting (tags: betrayal of national interests, criminals, foreign spies, etc); creating personal approach to politics (tying political agenda to a name and charisma of the leader), divide in identity and image; divide of audience and propaganda that created regional, national and class sections.
“These techniques are not a product of Montenegrin political scene, they were used as universal knowledge and skills in propaganda, and they get changed to adapt to local mentality in accordance to current moment and its needs”, he explained to Pobjeda.
Šćekić explains that indirect propaganda is no less significant. It is a wide area to deal in: non political content presented in non political forms, but with certain political goals and tasks.
“Using media, NGOs, other kinds of indirect propaganda (trough creation and propagating of questions of church, language, national matters) there was a desire to create a certain awareness and perception in the public. Both Government and opposition prepared the field for realization of certain political concepts and ideas, trying to create an opinion and attitude in the public so these ideas would be accepted. Manipulation was a tool to create a picture of reality that would appear even more real. They wanted to create a certain image that was reinforced daily via media, becoming usual and establishing itself as standard. Any critique to a reality created in this way was read as a danger to the state, national interests, stability and safety of the society. It was interesting to see how certain ”independent” media were created, who declared themselves independent but their function was to propagate certain political attitudes. This was a case of faked democracy”, Šćekić noted.
This kind of political communication is possible where there is one strong party and a weak opposition.
“DPS used system manipulation inherited from one-party system and it efficiently built upon it, creating a strong party organization, a machinery of sort, in order to win elections. They succeeded in presenting themselves in 1997, after the break up in the top lines of the party, to both national and international public, as a leading democratic force, earning sympathy and support of significant international players. It became a powerful organization with disciplined and stable voters and organized party and propaganda structures. Proof of this is the fact that they have been in leadership position for two decades, unseen before in post communist countries. Of course, opposition in fighting helped this, with their claims that all elections in Montenegro are rigged”, Šćekić explained.
The rhetoric of strong critique without arguments was brought to Montenegrin scene by small parties.
“Perception that being opposition in Montenegro is somehow advantageous was often cited. Political experience teaches us that, since multi-party system was introduced, many small and medium parties had use of being in opposition. Thanks to this ”privileged”, they were strong critiques of the leadership, tearing apart each of its movements, without having strong arguments and a level of responsibility that DPS has as an executive leader. This did not bother them to enter the leadership positions when this was ”necessary” (and useful to them). This is a case of People’s Party (in the time of 1998 – 2000), Liberal Alliance (2001 – 2002) and SDP (1998 – today)”, he said.
The practice of manipulation of ethnic and religious part of the voters is also very interesting, Šćekić pointed out.
“We have two dominant Albanian parties (DUA and DS), that put themselves forward as protectors of Albanian minority in Montenegro. SNS, DSS and NS all consider themselves the most ”Serbian”. On the other hand we have a number of parties with Muslim and Bosnian overtones, that did not have that much influence on their voters, because they are mostly voters of SDP and DPS (up until 1997 they mostly supported SDA, later LSCG and SDP)”, Šćekić concluded.
