A polling exercise by The Economist creating a global electoral college saw Greeks voting 91 per cent for Barack Obama and Macedonia among the three countries that chose John McCain. The outcome is an illustration of the sideshow that is the Balkans angle on the US presidential election.

In many cases by looking at advisers and others close to the campaigns, as well as areas of the two candidates’ records that are unlikely to be of compelling interest to a US domestic audience that has their financial woes uppermost in their minds, various interests linked to countries in the Balkans are fighting their own particular Obama-McCain battle.

In some cases, the campaigns themselves may, respectively, not mind any harm done by the allegations and facts that may emerge in the process.

Doing the rounds on sundry websites, and emanating from who knows where, are attempts to link McCain to Moscow. One says that “despite McCain’s tough talk, behind the scenes his top advisers have cultivated deep ties with Russia’s oligarchy…”

In an article on the website of The Nation, the claim is made: “The most notable example is the tale of how McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, advanced what became a key victory for the Kremlin: gaining control over the small but strategically important country of Montenegro. According to two former senior US diplomats who served in the Balkans, Davis and his lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, received several million dollars to help run Montenegro's independence referendum campaign of 2006”.

McCain has it in common with Obama’s vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden that he is not a much-loved figure in Serbian circles. One Serbian website highlighted the claim that Albanians in the US, through the Albanian American Civic League headed by former congressman Joe DioGuardi collected $1 million for McCain’s presidential campaign.

Serbians remember that McCain and Biden were both vehemently in favour of the Nato bombing of Belgrade at the time of the Slobodan Milosevic regime. McCain and Biden co-sponsored the resolution authorising the bombing.

More recently, in October 2008, the National Journal ran an article claiming that McCain’s deputy campaign manager Christian Ferry worked for Davis Manafort, the lobbying and consulting firm founded by Davis and Paul Manafort.

The article said that starting as a driver for Davis, Ferry worked his way up and was assigned key responsibilities for some of the firm's foreign clients. “They included a political party in Montenegro and a political leader in Ukraine, both backed by wealthy businessmen and oligarchs who sought to sway the outcome of elections in 2006 in those two nations”.

“In Montenegro, Davis Manafort helped push a referendum on independence from Serbia that narrowly passed by popular vote in May 2006. In Ukraine, Ferry was part of a Davis Manafort team that advised Victor Yanukovich, the country's then-prime minister, whose pro-Russian party made gains in the 2006 parliamentary elections. (In 2004, Yanukovich lost to the US-backed candidate, Victor Yushchenko, in a hotly contested presidential race.),” the article said.

After detailing other allegations, the article says that according to The New York Times, McCain's office received a phone call in 2005 from an official with the National Security Council who complained that the firm's work was "undercutting American foreign policy in Ukraine." The McCain campaign has previously denied that such a call took place.

Croatian news website Javno picked up the theme with an item alleging links between McCain and alleged “swindler” Raffaell Follieri. The article was illustrated with a photograph supposedly showing McCain boarding a boat anchored in Montenegro, allegedly organised by Follieri for McCain’s 70th birthday celebrations in 2006.

“The Republican John McCain likes to stress that he is close to ordinary men, but the photographs that were published by the newspaper The Nation show him as an elitist that loves glamour, and that he is treated like a star,” Javno said.

“He (McCain) was awaited by the smiling Follieri and his girlfriend at the time, the actress Anne Hathaway. The modern dressed presidential candidate was photographed whilst climbing onto the yacht, and besides him was his chief advisor in his campaign, Rick Davis… If the Republican is really in the photograph, it confirms that McCain really enjoys elitism and went to faraway Montenegro to mingle with the famous. However, dirt is thrown onto McCain’s reputation by the fact that Follieri organized his birthday,” Javno said.

Javno said that after an investigation involving the FBI, Follieri was facing five years in jail if found guilty.

Then there is the saga of the “name dispute” between Athens and Skopje. Greece rejects Skopje’s use of the name Macedonia for the country, both on historical grounds and, Athens says, because its use could be exploited to reinforce Skopje’s territorial claims in northern Greece.

The dispute, which has highly emotional dimensions and so far has eluded resolution for more than a decade, has drawn in the US, which under the Bush administration decided to opt for backing Skopje through the official use of Macedonia’s constitutional name.

McCain and Obama have been drawn into it too. As the International Herald Tribune reported recently, “so all-consuming is the nationalist quarrel that every local encountered on a recent visit was ready to ascribe sides to the US presidential candidates. According to popular belief, Obama is pro-Greece, while John McCain is for Macedonia.”

This may explain the outcomes in the respective countries in The Economist’s poll, to say nothing of the fact that Obama also triumphed in Serbia, perhaps on the grounds that he is not McCain and in spite of his running mate Biden’s record on the Nato bombing. And, in regard to an issue that should be even more powerful in Serbia, the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, which Obama is on record as supporting, but then, so is McCain – more on that below.

On the Greece-Macedonia name dispute, as one pro-Skopje website put it, “Last August, three US senators including presidential candidate Barack Obama introduced a resolution to the US senate (S. Res. 300), endorsing the Greek-nationalist bullying of the Republic of Macedonia. This resolution raises serious concerns about whether an Obama presidency would pursue a responsible policy vis-a-vis the Balkans”.

On the internet, there are copies of a letter dated September 2008, addressed to McCain, from Nina Gatzoulis, who signs herself the supreme president of the Pan-Macedonian Association of the USA.

The letter includes the passages: “Presently there is a Senate Resolution SR-300, which calls on the FYROM, a country north of Greece that wishes to be called Macedonia, to stop its propaganda against Greece and to diligently negotiate a mutually acceptable name that would provide long and lasting peace in the Balkans. This recently introduced resolution has thus far been co-sponsored by 10 Senators. A similar resolution in the House HR-356 was introduced by Congressman Gus Bilirakis and Congresswoman Caroline Maloney and has thus far been co-sponsored by 120 Representatives.

“Through the cosponsoring of this resolution, it is our hope that the United States will be sending the FYROM the clear message that their attempt to rewrite history and steal the cultural heritage of an honorable people is not acceptable behavior,” the letter continues.

“We would like to know if you would also become a co-sponsor of SR-300 before the elections?” the Gatzoulis letter asks.

"We would also like to know when you are president if you would take action to reverse the disastrous decision to recognize FYROM as Republic of “Macedonia” and urge FYROM to find a name which would reflect its population's Slavic, Albanian, Roma, Turkish and Greek origins," the letter adds.

In September 2008, it was reported that Obama had told weekly Albanian-American newspaper Illyria that he strongly supports Kosovo independence and its democratic processes emphasising that "as a president of the United States [he] will assist Kosovo develop a strong economy."

“Barack Obama supports the independence of Kosovo and its democratic process towards full sovereignty,” an Obama statement said. “The United States must work assisting Kosovo in building a vibrant democracy, secured through law and order that guarantees all human rights”.

For the record, however, Obama’s stated strong support for Kosovo is cancelled out by similar strong support by McCain. Sample smear headline from the internet: “McCain supports radical Muslims in Kosovo”.

Serbianna.com, a website that compiles and republishes news items and commentary articles about Serbia and the immediate region, currently has a link to the article from The Nation which was headlined “McCain’s Kremlin ties” and some months ago, to cite again the dynamic that sees the two rival campaigns cancelling each other out on the Kosovo factor, republished material attacking Biden’s record in the Balkans. Recording a view likely to be widely shared in Serbia, the website also republished an opinion piece by a Serbian commentator saying that whoever won, Obama or McCain, Serbia was likely to be in equally unfavourable positions.