Lessons to the periphery, from the epicentre
We have just witnessed parliamentary elections in UK and France and despite an enormous gulf between Kosovo and these two old democracies, few lessons can still be learned
Kosovo is a democracy, we keep reminding our allies (and whoever wants to listen really). This is true, or it’s more true here then in most of the rest of the Balkans. Kosovo has had most frequent rotation of parties in governance, freest press to cover elections, diversity of choice between local and central elections, fairly good participation of electorate, impressive civil society monitoring mechanisms, not so terribly wrong exit poll agencies.
The proportional electoral system means that sometimes the governing majorities were not stable and prone to blackmail by individual parties, or even MP’s who were “king-makers” in coalitions — which led to 4 different PM’s between 2019 to 2021, but that’s certainly better than having one single, omnipresent, omnipotent, omnicompetent leader (see the endnote) who controls the entire country, especially when his style of rule is mixed with murder, mayhem and other malevolent mischief (wink, wink, Aleksandar Vucic).
UK and France are of course even greater democracies, with infinitely greater experience in democratic process and participation than our tiny statelet, but following closely the elections in these two countries specifically, I do think some valuable lessons or maybe instructive parallels can be drawn, especially for Kosovo’s opposition.
Being first doesn’t matter
Headlines of victories for the parties in the Western world do not necessarily reflect what will happen next. In Spain, conservatives won the plurality of votes, but their coalition potential was weaker and Socialists scrambled a big governing coalition (which was based on some tough compromises — another lesson for Kosovo opposition). Similarly, the entire world seems to tremble at the “obliterating victory” for the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, but due to the two round-system of French elections, the final results meant madame Le Pen’s coalition slumped to the third place, while the diametrically opposite far-left/left/green coalition being propelled to potential governing role.
Kosovo’s prime minister Albin Kurti may well win next parliamentary elections which will be held latest in 6 months.
His party is polling between 36% to 49%. (he won 51% in the last elections). Most pollsters and experts agree he will drop in votes for a number of reasons (I’ve covered some of these reasons here) and should objectively drop to between low 30s to low 40s. That will certainly be a big plurality but will not translate into a governing majority.
Since Mr. Kurti’s party has called everyone else traitors, corrupt, pro-Serb and is generally an engine of polarization and inflaming antagonisms in Kosovo, other parties are not naturally prone to Stockholm syndrome and help Kurti stay in power.
Kurti’s other big problem is that he has isolated himself from the rest of the Western world. He attends an occasional leftist philosophy seminar in an island in Greece and grumpily appears in some multilateral fora, but his government is still under EU sanctions, he has alienated strongly both Democrats and Republicans in the US, and he is not on speaking terms really with regional leaders or EU diplomats. In many ways, the promising boy of Balkans has become damaged goods and will have hard time to convince anyone in opposition to join him in a coalition, lest he gives up his own prime ministerial seat.
So opposition parties may decide to run a tactical election in Kosovo, aimed at blocking Kurti from winning a governing majority. As we have seen elsewhere in the continent, this may just be enough for a new political rotation in Kosovo.
All politics is local
This is one of the most overused phrases in political TV debates, especially in US, but some remarkable results came from elections in United Kingdom, which provide another valuable lesson. Many have now noted how Liberals in UK won some half a million votes less than the far-right Reform party but gained an astonishing 72 seats in the Parliament. British system is of course first-past-the-post and different, but Lib-Dem leader Sir Ed Davey ran a very focused campaign on maximising votes in specific constituencies (well that, and he did lot of stunts like bungee-jumping, water-sliding, playing Queen’s ‘We will rock you’ hit in a school band, etc.)
Kosovo opposition parties may not need to be first in elections, to govern as a part of a new majority, but they still need to increase their dismal share of votes from 2021 elections. As Mr. Kurti is fond of meta-narratives, the big themes of the wide Balkan war with Serbia, the global inequality of 1% vs the rest, and is fond to meddle (or even participate) in elections elsewhere (Albania, North Macedonia, Switzerland, UK, France) — Kosovo opposition would do well to focus on the local game, posting strongest candidates from the community and speaking of how governance will help folks through new schools, new roads, higher salaries, not new conflicts with West or East.
Political parties must indeed have some storyline, some promises and some narrative backbone to be seen as serious contenders. One can’t quite endorse the relative silence of Kosovan opposition in some big-ticket items of the political debate. Kurti indeed has a vast experience in talking big game, but a fine balance between pointing at the need for change in the currently isolated Kosovo and the focus on obtaining maximum electoral footprint in the biggest number of municipalities would be an ideal combo. Whether this can be achieved, the jury is still out.
Populism is popular, but has limitations
The headlines throughout this summer across Europe have been influenced by the rise of the right conservatism (not all of it far-right). From European parliamentary elections to the first round of French elections to the Dutch elections to the potency of Farage’s Reform party in UK, one can see the signals in the noise (some would say even the writing on the wall).
Kurti is also a populist politician, providing simplest of solution to most titanic of tasks. He has assembled an impressively big tent in 2021 from macchiato sipping hipsters to islamist activists, but since then has provided little respite to either group. Economy is at standstill, direct foreign investments are largely based on diaspora investments in real estate, while major capital investments, compared to Albania, Serbia and others in the region, are minuscule and mired by corruption allegations and delays.
Kurti has been successful, however, in his policy of belligerence towards Serbia, finding a perfect partner in cynical Belgrade. Both the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia have been content with status quo in dialogue. Serbia government has continued with the anti-Kosovan provocations on one side (even supporting armed terrorist insurgency) and professing dedication to dialogue on the other side. Kurti on the other hand was focused to change to the reality on the ground in northern Kosovo, disregarding the decades-long alliances and coordination with the West.
This neo-nationalist push may halt the slide in polls, but it doesn’t solve an of the crucial problems and national interests of Kosovo for the genuine Euro-Atlantic integration, as we’ve seen from the debacle during Kosovo’s application to Council of Europe membership when both Germany and France blocked Kosovo, due to unwillingness by Kurti to abide by what he has promised to do: send the draft statute of the Association if Serbian Majority Municipalities for evaluation by the Constitutional Court.
Populism may provide some electoral respite in Balkans, but as we’ve seen in France and UK, still has clear limitations when it comes to bringing forth solutions. Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate has famously (and unfortunately) branded the Trump voters as ‘deplorables’. She lost the elections. Kosovo opposition needs not to aggravate that 1/3 of Kosovan electorate that hates the old centrist, establishment consensus. It just has to offer something concrete, somewhere local, on something important, in order to be able to tackle the enormous challenges on the big landscape, where political tectonic plates have been shifting for some times.
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Side note: As it happens, the 2021 elections in Kosovo were a bit of an outlier, as the Kosovan voters, in an unprecedented wave of anger towards the incumbents and the political establishment, gave ALL power to Albin Kurti and his leftist-nationalist (melenchonist?) party, including an overwhelming majority in the parliament, the government and the presidency. The new government did start a Robespierre-lite-like ‘cleaning’ of the republic from the vestiges of the Ancien régime, but luckily Kosovo is not only a democracy but also has a functioning Constitutional Court so much of these attempts at re-creating Republic fell flat because they were blatantly illegal.
*A small disclaimer. I haven’t been involved in party politics for over 8 years but I have served as Kosovo’s Deputy Foreign Minister from 2010 to 2016 and a short stint as the Foreign Minister in 2016, on behalf of PDK. Follow my newsletter The Balkan Bubble on Substack for fresh content in politics and arts.
