'Beli' Defeats Serbian Rivals in Online Election Campaign

If the battle to become Serbia's next president was decided in terms of online activity, spoof character Ljubisa Preletacevic "Beli", played by Luka Maksimovic, would win hands down.

That is the verdict of research carried out by a Belgrade-based NGO, Share Foundation, which shows thatBeli notched up almost 600,000 interactions on his posts on his official Facebook page.

He was also the presidential candidate who most often answered his followers online through comments.

Bojan Perkov, policy researcher from Share Foundation, told BIRN that Preletacevic had used Facebook so much because he had understood that, these days, young people tend to use social media to get informed more than other media.

"We should also keep in our mind that other, traditional media, are closed to opposition candidates," he added.

"Also, the satirical style of communication that he [Beli] uses is very easy to apply on social networks, which are based on content exchange. His funny video footages and photo-montages are real reflection of how meme culturehas come into local politics."

Perkov added that while Serbia's other presidential candidates had also recognized the significance of social networks as an important means of political communication, Beli's team had demonstrated the best skills in that area.

Former foreign minister and president of the UN General Assembly Vuk Jeremic came in the second place in terms of interactions on Facebook in the campaign.

Former Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic came third, followed by the widely expected winner of the race, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.

Sasa Radulovic's team was the weakest on Facebook, Share said. It recorded a mere 99 comments on his posts during the month-long campaign. This was a...