Online campaigning

Desmond Zammit Marmara' looks forward to a high degree of online campaigning at the next general elections scheduled for 2008:

An innovative aspect of Maltese politics during the last few years has been the increasing use of the Internet. This is not only by the main political parties, their officials and candidates; but also by ordinary citizens. All are eager to disseminate their personal views on all aspects of politics in Malta.

Online political fora, politically-oriented websites and blogs, political propaganda, e-mails, electronic journals such as maltastar.com, are on the increase. I once wrote an article online asking what had happened to Malta’s political intellectuals since they appeared to have vanished from circulation. Today, I realize that I was not incisive enough in my analysis of the political situation in Malta since the contributions of many of them can be found online.

In fact, I would also venture to make the perhaps debatable statement that the majority of Malta’s finest young political intellectuals use the Internet for their contributions to the current political debate in the Maltese Islands. Which brings me to the question: “How effective is the Internet as a political tool in the Maltese context?”..

Since use of the Internet requires a certain level of education, it goes without saying that, notwithstanding all that I have stated above, the Internet remains an effective but a limited political tool since it does not reach the less educated part of the population (22.8 per cent of respondents, according to the same NSO data quoted above) which does not have access to the Internet as it lacks the necessary skills. As such, the next General Election campaign will still resemble electoral campaigns of the past but with the addition of online campaigning on a far greater scale than the Maltese Islands have experienced to date.