We continue to analyze the coverage of various election campaigns on Belarusian
Facebook pages. In November 2023, 167 publications were found using social media analysis and monitoring tools.
The total number of publication sources was 36, with the most on the page Zerkalo. Novosti – 15, and 14 publications each on the pages of Novy Chas / Novy Čas and Mlyn.by.
How the November publications were distributed across different election campaigns
The upcoming Belarusian elections* according to the current regime were mentioned in 55% of publications, potential elections in Ukraine in 12.6%. In third place was the discussion of elections in the Coordination Council / Kaardynacyjnaja Rada – 9.6% of publications. There was only one publication each about elections in Venezuela, Taiwan, and the Netherlands.
Most of the disinformation, prepared by state media outlets, concerned the likelihood of elections in Ukraine and the results of elections in Moldova.
The page ATN: News of Belarus and the world has almost 195 thousand subscribers:
The propagandistic narrative being promoted: There is no freedom of speech and media in Ukraine.
On November 5 and 19, local elections were held in Moldova – the first in a series of consecutive elections. Following the local elections, presidential elections will be held in 2024 and parliamentary elections in 2025.
Each of these elections will determine Moldova’s future relations with the European Union. Their importance was highlighted by a statement from the European Commission on November 8, just a few days after the first round of local elections, recommending that negotiations for Moldova’s entry into the EU begin now.
There were a small number of publications about the election in Moldova, but they reported on the defeat of the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (Romanian: Partidul Acțiune și Solidaritate, PAS), led by the President of Moldova – Maia Sandu:
Ultimately, the voting led to widespread support for candidates backing the pro-European President of Moldova, Maia Sandu. However, Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity failed to secure the mayoral position in any of the country’s major cities. In Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, incumbent Mayor Ion Ceban was re-elected, outpacing the candidate from the Party of Action and Solidarity.
The final election results as of November 24, 2023:
The upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections will be pivotal moments for Moldova’s democratic future. The alleged Russian interference in the local elections serves as a warning of the problems that may intensify during these electoral contests.
In this regard, the crucial significance will be Moldova’s ability to conduct free, fair, and transparent elections while preventing external interference.
The most “elegant” illustration of the possibility of democratic forces participating in the Belarusian elections, announced by the Belarusian regime, was demonstrated by Mlyn.BY, the page of the “Information Agency ‘Minskaya Pravda'”, located in the building of the Press Center “Dom Pressy”, where the editorial office of the state media holding “Belarus Segodnya” is also situated.
It can be confidently assumed that the number of publications about the elections*, scheduled by the central election commission for February 25, 2024, will increase. The second hypothesis is that the elections in the European Union and especially the presidential elections in the USA will be the focus of attention for Belarusian propagandists. It is necessary to take into account the serious influence on the publications of Belarusian media, controlled by the current regime, by the Russian propagandistic-disinformation ecosystem, which is conducting a global hybrid campaign.
