Macedonia votes on name change in disinformation campaign

For a Balkan country of two million inhabitants, Macedonia has attracted an impressive list of personalities in recent weeks.

US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and European Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini have all descended on the capital Skopje to support the most important vote Of the history.

This Sunday, the Macedonians voted in a referendum on their membership in NATO and the EU and the acceptance of an agreement with Greece to change the name of their country in the Republic of Northern Macedonia. This is because Greece insists that only its own province of Macedonia – the birthplace of Alexander the Great – can claim that name and blocked the previous attempt of its northern neighbor to join the alliance.

The conflict has been a stumbling block in relations since Macedonia's independence from Yugoslavia nearly three decades ago. The agreement on the name change signed by the Greek and Macedonian prime ministers in June is the first time that a resolution is in sight.

Many in Macedonia see it as a unique opportunity to revive the economy and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who negotiated the agreement, is counting on NATO membership, which requires indispensable investments in Macedonia.

"The referendum is, in my opinion, a decisive event for the country, as it is an attempt to overcome the most important obstacle to the pursuit of NATO and European integration," he said. Simonida Kacarska, director of the Institute of European Policy in Skopje.

But a massive campaign of misinformation organized to boycott the vote is under way, said Goran Nikolovski, director of the Macedonian administration for security and counterintelligence, and Western officials blaming Russia.

Complaint of interference

Moscow is openly opposed to Macedonia's aspirations for NATO, having long been a major player in the Balkans. Mattis said on the way to Skopje that there was "no doubt" that Russia was transferring money and was conducting a wider campaign to undermine the name change. "We do not want to see Russia do it there [in Macedonia] what they have tried to do in so many other countries, "Mattis told reporters.

Speaking in Washington this month, Stoltenberg said Russia was trying to use misinformation and social media to prevent Macedonia from becoming a member of NATO.

The Kremlin has always denied interference in the votes of other countries and Macedonian Prime Minister Zaev said there was no evidence that Russia was behind the misinformation campaign, even though he acknowledged his clear opposition to the accession of Macedonia to NATO.

But Moscow's recent record in the Balkans has led diplomats to be on alert.

The Montenegrin authorities have accused the Russian security services of being involved in a plot to assassinate their prime minister and to organize a coup in 2016 to prevent the country from joining NATO.

"Naturally, neither the Montenegrin nor the Western media provide any evidence to confirm these allegations," Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, told the press.

In July, Greece expelled two Russian diplomats and banned them from entering two others after trying to bribe officials and "undermining its foreign policy and ingesting its internal affairs," according to statements by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Greek media reported that Russian diplomats were working to block the deal with Macedonia – which the Kremlin denies.

And last summer, Macedonian intelligence documents leaked as part of the organized crime and corruption reporting project showed intelligence agents that Russia has been trying to sow discord in Macedonia since 2008.

Michael Carpenter, former director of the National Security Council for Europe to Russia, under the Obama administration, said the Kremlin had effective ways to deflect Western integration from the Balkan countries.

"The online propaganda and the distribution of a few hundred thousand euros, even a few million euros, to various ultra-nationalist groups in the region are not very expensive, have no negative impact on Moscow. It is a relatively inexpensive and easy way to assert its influence in the region, "he said.

Disinformation campaign

Although we do not know who is the brain, a campaign of disinformation around the vote is in full swing, say NGOs that monitor cyberspace. Nikolovski told Skopje TV that the security services were investigating a systematic attempt to undermine the vote through social media and false news.

The Transatlantic Commission on the Integrity of Elections, a think tank co-founded by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said there was evidence that Twitter robots were spearheading an effort to to suppress voter turnout. In a statement, the organization says that the accounts calling for boycott and created two months ago account for 10% of the online conversation – a figure they say is almost three times that of the Italian elections .

"There is a very structured and organized campaign to boycott the referendum and for the deal with Greece to fail," said Marko Trosanovski, president of the Skopje-based Institute for Democracy.

In one example, a photo of a video of the Croatian pop star in which she was portrayed as a victim of domestic violence was used as evidence of police brutality against women protesting the referendum.

Another report published a false report on a murdered Belgian mayor because it threatened to reveal that the EU was led by "satanists". The article used the image and name of a mayor of a Belgian city killed by a teenager. who attributed the suicide of his father to the loss of his job on the board.

And the Macedonian Defense Ministry was forced to deny forcefully after a false report that NATO troops used depleted uranium ammunition during viral maneuvers in Macedonia.

"There are many new pages established over the past two months that spread fake news and hate speech," said Vladimir Petreski of the Macedonian NGO Vistinomer, which means "truth-meter". websites.

"Some of them are lies, but most of them contain a grain of truth and this grain of truth is twisted, it contains political elements to explain from one to the next. in a way that suits the author, "he said.

Macedonia was the last to participate in a survey conducted this year by the Open Society Institute – Sofia on 35 European countries for their resistance to false news.

"We have a very weak and fragmented media space, and the professionalism of the media in the country is a problem in itself," Kacarska said. "It's a media space that's very easy to penetrate with false information."

Legal procedure

Even if the authorities have set the threshold of participation at 50%, the referendum is a consultative referendum, which means that Prime Minister Zaev can trigger the process of amendments to the Constitution to rename Macedonia, regardless of the result.

At least half of the voters voting for it would give legitimacy to his government to seek the support of two-thirds of the parliament needed to make changes to the constitution.

Trosanovski, Kacarska and Petreski all say that it will be difficult to meet because Macedonia carried out a census of the population in 2002 and that its electoral register includes people who have died or emigrated.

And powerful voices in the government are urging citizens to abstain. The president of Macedonia, Gjorge Ivanov, announced that he would boycott the referendum, warning that the country was invited to commit a "legal and historical suicide".

His views are echoed by the small but noisy anti-referendum Mac Macedonia, which has emerged in recent months and has close ties to Putin's United Russia party, party leaders said.

Its leader, Janko Bacev, said the West wanted to erase Macedonia from the world map and was striving to support the boycott at protests across the country.

"The yes campaign gives the impression that billions of euros are waiting at the Macedonian border, and as soon as we change our name, we will all be rich and happy," he said. Mr Bacev quoted Bulgaria, neighboring Macedonia, which has been a member of the EU for 11 years, but still struggling economically.

Marko Trosanovski said that the steady stream of high-level visitors was initially a successful strategy for the yes camp, but that he started using the Macedonians.

"It's time now to step back, because it's starting to have a counterproductive effect. People have mostly formed their opinions, and it's an emotional problem. People are aware of the sacrifice they have to make, but anyone who comes to Macedonia and constantly asks them to vote for it, they find it pretentious, "said Trosanovsky.

If the referendum succeeds and the constitution of Macedonia is changed to change the name, the agreement will have to be ratified by the Greek Parliament, which has also been the scene of violent protests against the agreement.

But whatever the result of Sunday's vote, it will set in motion events that will shape the destiny of the small Balkan nation.