Ever since the Obama campaign showed that online-campaigning can make a difference, many politicians have tried their hand at using social networking sites as part of their election campaign strategy.

For the 2009 parliament elections, former Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev had his team create a website - which was then hacked and defaced with anti-tripartite coalition messages - and pages on Facebook and Twitter. Stanishev famously only ever sent one tweet: "Getting in contact with internet people," and went on to lose the 2009 elections.

During the formation of the new government, a set of profiles appeared on Twitter, including Boiko (Borissov, leader of GERB), Tsetska (Tsacheva, Speaker of Parliament), Ivankostov (one of the two leaders of the Blue Coalition) and Sergeystanishev (not to be confused with the real Stanishev Twitter profile).

Among others, on July 22, in the midst of cabinet negotiations, Boiko tweeted "Знам името на един министър, което вие не знаетеее..." (I know the name of a minister you don’t kno-ow.....), suggesting that the tongue-in-cheek profiles were not set up by the politicians themselves.

Now that the names of minsters are known, how do they do on their social networking? What do their real Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles look like?
How easy is it to friend a minister?

European advantage

It seems that, at least as far as social networking is concerned, that a European Parliament background is an advantage, closely followed by a cultural background. Bulgaria’s two ministers that are former Members of European Parliament – Foreign Minister Roumyana Zheleva and Defence Minister Nikolai Mladenov – not only have Facebook pages, and, in Mladenov’s case an active Twitter page, but also a website and a blog, that are all referring to each other.

On her personal Facebook profile, Zheleva lists as her employer Българските граждани (Bulgarian citizens) and Евродепутат (MEP) as her position. On her Facebook wall, Zheleva has mostly shared election campaign videos that appeared on her website and she uses a YouTube application to share YouTube videos of The Cranberries, James Morrison and Led Zeppelin, among others, with her more than 650 friends.

From her profile, she links to her Facebook page where she has more than 200 fans.

Mladenov, the Benjamin of the Cabinet, probably goes furthest in his use of social networking sites. Mladenov is the only Cabinet minister who has an active Twitter page, where on July 27 he posted "First informal meeting of the new government. No time to waste," followed by "First Saturday in the office, and a pile of papers to go through..." on August 1 2009.

Where Zheleva, according to her Facebook page, is looking for networking, Mladenov, who describes his political views as Liberal, is interested in "women."
Both his Facebook and his Twitter pages, link to his website and his blog.

Cultural celebs

Culture Minister and artist Vezhdi Rashidov, who surprised everyone by winning the elections as a GERB candidate in the traditional Movement for Rights and Freedoms stronghold of Kurdjali, is the third minister with a Facebook profile. Rashidov’s profile reads like a mini campaign website. He actively used Facebook during the election campaign, when he shared campaign updates with his more than 760 friends. Besides several photo albums with election campaign photos, the profile contains also a note, titled "Аз съм един от вас" (I am one of you). Written in pamphlet-style, in the note posted on June 19, Rashidov argues that his roots lie in Kurdjali and that his return to Bulgaria and to that region for the elections was because he was fed up of "tolerating insolence and the treachery of people who come to my native region, not because they are from there, but because they need the vote of my fellow citizens. So that the people of Kurjdali can then be their servants, and they would be the ones to own everything."

The last wall-post by Rashidov on his profile was on election day morning, asking his friends for support that day.

Remarkably absent from Rashidov’s Facebook page is anything outside the election campaign, especially anything to do with his professional life as an artist.
There is also a smaller Facebook group, with fewer than 300 members to support Rashidov.

Much like Rashidov’s two Facebook pages, the other cultural icon in the current Cabinet has two campaign-related pages devoted to him as well.

Searching Facebook for Bozhidar Dimitrov (in Cyrillic, of course) returns one fan page and three open groups; one in support of and two against Dimitrov's appointment as minister, here and here.

The fan page appears to have been set up in the weeks leading up to the elections and has about 160 fans. The page contains only three photos and two links, one of which is a link to a petition called Петиция в подкрепа на Българите в Р. Македония (Petition in support of Bulgarians in the Republic of Macedonia). The petition calls for support for a Bulgarian woman who has allegedly been arrested by Macedonian police, according to the petition, "only because she was Bulgarian".

The Dimitrov page in support of his appointment as a minister is an open group, where anyone can become a member, called Българите в чужбина имат нужда от Божидар Димитров (Bulgarians abroad need Bozhidar Dimitrov) and campaigns for his appointment as minister without portfolio, responsible for Bulgarians abroad.

Like with Rashidov, none of Dimitrov’s pages says anything about his life prior to the 2009 election campaign.

In the cases of both Dimitrov and Rashidov, it is unclear how much they themselves had to do with any of these pages and to what extent they have been produced by either election campaign teams or individual supporters.