The personal websites and blogs of famous politicians that participated in the presidential election campaign in Ukraine are littered with dull congratulations for Easter and Women’s Day, standard news that one John Doe gave an interview to a certain media publication or plans to participate in a talk show. "My last short blog posting was published on January 4. My team and I needed some time to understand and go through the results of these elections. Frankly speaking, I had other worries than updating my blogs," Yulia Tymoshenko recently said to the press after a long period of silence.

This is perhaps the most sincere statement of politicians that participate in the blogosphere and it makes us wonder why those politicians that attempted to mimic the "Obama effect" during the elections switched their websites to the standby mode after the new government came to power? And if the recent Internet activity was only an election technology, this raises the question whether it was worth it or not?

"Presidential candidates that ran in the last elections invested big bucks into developing their presence on the Internet, which became fashionable after Barack Obama’s victory,” says Chair of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine Oleksandr Chernenko. “But Internet technologies were better used in the 2004 elections than in last year’s race, because then it was an alternative source of information. The Internet works fine when there is censorship, a pressing power and so on, but not in conditions of pluralism or even more indifference and disbelief. In the last elections the Internet played more of a mobilizing, rather than informational role,” Chernenko believes.

However, the candidates failed to mobilize their voters in the Internet communities. "The Internet campaigns of the top five or seven Ukrainian politicians that ran did not have a major impact on the election results. Nobody was betting on the Internet as a tool to build up support of a candidate for a quarter or a third,” says Maksym Savanevskiy, an expert on Internet communications. “In this election a good chunk of change was spent on the Internet – from US $5-7 million – mostly on banner advertising, placement of print articles on information sites, etc. In other words, their web campaigns were an expanded version of off-line journalism,” Savanevskiy added.

The expert believes this was a conceptual mistake. Politicians had to build a community of followers, maintain constant communication, send out clear messages and be honest and frank with their supporters. This community could be quite serious.

“If a politician has the support of 3-4% of the electorate, we are talking nearly a million people. Even if only 3-4% of this million are active voters, this comes out to 30,000-40,000 potential voters. In Ukraine such resources are valuable and can sway the balance,” Savanevskiy pointed out.

Whatever the case may be, the expert underscored that today the Internet offers a tremendous opportunity for soliciting followers and gaining supporters for new political projects. Serhiy Tihipko, who was the main alternative candidate to Tymoshenko and Yanukovych and enjoyed much of the sympathy of the Internet audience, now holds a position of considerable power. Meanwhile, BYT in opposition has not much presence neither in the real nor virtual worlds.

Chernenko argues that in the forthcoming local elections the Internet will play a smaller role than it did in the presidential elections. “Creating a social network of support across the country, where thousands of people can be attracted is one thing. On the local scale it works differently,” Chernenko affirmed. By contrast, Savanevskiy believes that in terms of Internet communications the work of local council elections is much more promising. After all, within the community it is easier to define real not abstract problems citizens are concerned about, offer solutions and appeal to the voters for assistance.

“I am confident that in all cities with a population of one million plus, there will be more than one candidate to make a serious bid on the Internet. In Kyiv, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk some politicians have already begun developing closed social networks for their supporters and potential followers.  The mechanism has already been put into action,” Savanevskiy assured.