BELGRADE, THURSDAY

PEOPLE NOW EXPRESS their views more through the internet than by traditional methods, and will soon be electing their politicians by click, according to an Irish political scientist.

Professor Brian Burrow of the Royal Hibernian Institute for Comparative Suffrage, who has written a book on the subject entitled Led By Opinion, says that given the desperate reliance on internet sites like Tik Tok and X (Formerly Twitter) by modern politicians, future votes may well degenerate into a series click preferences, with people abandoning the old polling booths in favor of pressing a button on their smartphone.

“I can envisage an election based solely on Tik Tok views for instance, with the politician or party who received the most views winning. It would have to be scrutinized for bots and the like to avoid blatant cheating but in essence the system is already in place. It just needs a politician – perhaps one who is more popular on the web than in real life – to give the go ahead.”

Professor Burrow says his observations are based on a continuing move by regular life online. “So much of what we did for real before, we now do online. What it means for politicians, however, is that they have more and more become people pleasers, and followers. Leadership has suffered as a consequence, and probably will continue to.”