Three reasons why there will be a change of government in Kosovo
National elections are scheduled for early 2025 and the political parties have not yet started full-fledged campaigns, but certain patterns may be decisive in enabling yet another government rotation.
Walking around the streets of Prishtina, one would not notice that politics is influencing at all the daily lives of the regular people.
Folks are enjoying the prolonged Indian summer, following the scorching heatwaves of the real summer; the somewhat artificially induced tensions over opening of a bridge in northern Kosovo have largely subsided following the visit of CIA director Bill Burns in September; the forthcoming US elections — and the consequences for Kosovo — are far more commented by the local macchiato-sipping pundit class in the coffee tables lining up the streets of downtown.
Yet, this is obviously a quiet before the storm.
At this nigh hour of this parliament’s work, the Assembly of Republic of Kosovo has descended into an unwieldy forum. The ruling party Vetevendosje (VV) despite having on paper the largest majority ever obtained in history of Kosovo, is absurdly boycotting all sessions with parliamentary questions and any voting on opposition resolutions. When they do participate in their own parliament’s work, VV can’t muster a quorum, courtesy of many ruling MPs defecting or simply procrastinating. According to non-partisan think tanks, this parliament of Kosovo has been the most ineffective in the modern history of Kosovo. More than 50 bills are waiting to be voted and will probably be scrapped due to self-imposed boycotts or the lack of quorum.
The Western pressure on the government regarding the lack of coordination in policies vis-a-vis Serbian community and tangible results in dialogue have also slowed down a bit. Prime minister Kurti has opened the borders for Serbian goods, enabling Kosovo to remain in CEFTA trade agreement and Berlin Process. German threats of leaving Kosovo out of the regional cooperation instruments did the trick.
Local media are mostly covering serious allegations of corruption that have hit hard the ruling party in recent weeks. One day the prosecutors start the investigations against the VV-appointed head of electricity distribution, another day the messages sent by political commissary of VV, the mysterious Albania-born Dejona Mihailli are leaked, showing the enormous unofficial power of the extreme-left members of “Albania branch” of VV, on the operations of the entire state apparatus.
Other scandals have involved the trade ministry who can’t account for millions spent secretly during COVID on food reserves, as well as Kosovo ambassador to Croatia, who has withdrawn millions in cash, obtained from a Belgrade-registered entity trading in energy. The secret recordings of the phone conversations between the VV party whip with the then black-listed Serbian politician Radoicic, who later became self-proclaimed author of terrorist attack in Banjska, have also created quite a mini-furore in the media.
Sparks in the parliament and angry social media trolling hint that the forthcoming campaign will be tough. Opposition parties will turn on charm offensive, running way from confrontational politics, while VV will try to get everyone back in the mud ring, where it excels in its’ own brand of populism, mud-slinging and vicious rhetoric.
It’s easy to assume little will change in the forthcoming elections.
Opposition has in past been relatively subdued in its fight against the government, Albin Kurti personally remains a popular politician, seemingly unperturbed by the scandals and sloth in his entire government, presenting himself as Balkan version of Zelenskyy vis-a-vis putinist Serbia.
But this is probably a wrong impression. There are strong reasons to believe that these are the final weeks and months of Kurti as Prime minister, despite the aura of invincibility he’s projecting, as he drives around Kosovo in numerous armored cars, surrounded by a dozens bodyguards.
This love for many security cars and bodyguards has been something of an acquired taste, a result of residing in the political ivory tower, and is far from the humble type of politics Kurti propagated when he was leading often violent protests as opposition leader.
- Firstly, Kosovo is actually a functioning democracy.
Serbia is a parliamentary autocracy and one where change of government is almost impossible as Vucic controls the parliament, the government, the presidency, the secret police, the media and even part of the opposition. Montenegro’s democracy was clearly influenced by malign foreign interference. Albania’s opposition has been damaged by lack of credible leadership that can threaten its’ charismatic Prime minister.
But Kosovo is different, courtesy of starting from scratch in 1999, respectively 2008, and not inheriting legacy of communist past or Milosevic’s lingering influence.
Elections are free and there’s a frequent rotation of Prime ministers (10 of them in 24 years). Undecided voters matter, and both low and high propensity voters have changed their mind and voted different parties in consecutive elections. Many folks vote one party in local and another in national elections, something that has become a rarity in the world due to the extreme polarization of the societies. This means that incumbency brings little value to the incumbent.
Despite Kurti winning in unprecedented electoral tsunami in 2021, when he took full control of the parliament, government and presidency, the later attempts at state capture were firmly rebuffed by the Constitutional Court. A record 12 laws have been declared unconstitutional by the Court, severely limiting the ability of the ruling party to use civil servants or instruments of rule of law, in ways not intended by the Constitution. So, elections will provide a new deck of cards, and the previous 2021 results will not guide many voters voters for the decisions they take in 2025.
- Secondly: the key support pillars of the ruling party have crumbled since 2021.
a. Kurti won an unprecedented amount of votes in 2021 partly as a result of a coalition with popular Vjosa Osmani, who left her own LDK to establish a new political party Guxo. Subsequently Kurti became PM and Osmani was voted in as President, but the honey moon didn’t last long. Osmani has lost the control over her own fledgling party, now led by the Foreign minister Gervalla-Schwartz who is not on speaking term with President Osmani. Guxo has now melted into VV. President has also complained a lot privately to diplomats and less vocally but still noticeably in public, against Kurti’s over-reach and the lack of coordination with the Western allies. Osmani can’t campaign now as a President but she will also not use whatever of her former moral authority and political aura to help the ruling VV. This will have impact on votes.
b. Second thing that will have impact is weakening of VV in urban centers. Since 2021 elections, when VV won over 50 % (over 60% in Prishtina!) n every single major municipality, the local elections have severely weakened the ruling party. VV by only a few hundred votes has managed to capture one single bigger municipality in 2021 local elections and is now very far from being able to capture majority, or even the plurality of votes in major cities. Both PDK and LDK have strong mayors with substantive resources and popularity they can lend to the national campaign. Indeed, PDK a the largest opposition party, has nominated Bedri Hamza, a popular technocrat mayor of Mitrovica, as candidate for the prime minister.
c. Another issue for Kurti is the shrinking of the political tent. In 2021 he managed to build a very big coalition of voters, from urban voters to Islamist local politicians. Since then, key religiously conservative MPs have left the party and have announced to run on a separate list. Former Deputy PM from VV also departed and is creating a havoc in the parliament against his former colleagues. Number of key figures are also missing, while key ministers have been notably silent in promoting VV.
- Thirdly, the diaspora may provide less cushion for Kurti.
Kosovo has a large diaspora. The country had 1.8 million people in 2011 and it has circa 1.6 million this time around. There are Kosovar voters who live in Switzerland and Germany since 1960s and there are voters who left last few years. Majority of diaspora tends to be more conservative and more nationalist and was a very fertile pool of voters for VV. In 2021 VV got 70% of diaspora vote, bringing around 10 MPs (out of total of 61) for VV. But since 2021, the new electoral law has made voting more complicated to ensure prevention of identity theft and the type of passion that was inflamed in 2021 just after COVID, is simply not noticeable this time. Other opposition parties are also opening branches abroad, which will balance the vote somewhat.
What are the polls saying?
Polls in Kosovo are somewhat unreliable as representative sample is difficult to design due to ever shifting demographics and high diaspora participation. Most polls agree that VV is hovering at 40%, with some showing upper range of 40s, while other polls have VV at high 30%. Opposition will seek to recover votes from the disastrous 2021 elections but in many ways the battle will be for the first place. If trend picks up for Mr. Hamza or LDK leader Lumir Abdixhiku who is running on a similar economy-focused campaign, there will be a limited path to achieve 50% majority in the parliament.
Opposition has clear empirical evidence that it ran the economy better when it was in power, that our diplomacy used to be more effective, that allies were allies and helped us move forward. Kosovo highways, airport, major investments in schools, Kosovo’s recognition and memberships in international fora all happened during previous governments, especially in two mandates with the PDK and LDK prime ministers.
Mr Hamza especially is polling well and has a credible track record as a former finance minister and Central Bank governor. Formulating credible offer to the voters will be key for pendulum to swing back to the mainstream politics from current extreme positions and policies.
Kurti’s coalition potential is limited. His Robespierrian tirades against the “old regime” didn’t help him make allies in the political spectrum. While parties are saying they’ll have “no red lines” in coalition making, opposition parties will be weary to join Kurti, a politician known to be a difficult partner.
Kurti will again put himself as poster-boy for the campaign and will hope to pull the same trick again, but he’s not a young, promising opposition leader anymore. He’s a politician turning 50 next year, with a governance that brought fraught relations with key allies, discernible results in fight against corruption, no significant investments, not a single new recognition, failure in membership campaign for Council of Europe.
Economy, healthcare, education are all areas where Kurti can show preciously little to the voters. But his campaign will try to ignore the corruption allegations surrounding his entourage and lack of good economic news, but will focus on his policies in north and his rhetoric against Serbia, layered with heavy layers of propaganda. Whether banning dinar or keeping special forces police in the north is enough for voters tired of cost-of-living crisis, that’s the open question.
Spain, Poland, France — and non next few weeks maybe even Austria — have all witnessed elections in which the clear “winner” who got plurality of the votes did not muster the actual parliamentary majority and was simply unable to create a government.
Kosovo’s ruling party, after 4 years of divisive, polarizing governance, shouldn’t be surprised too much if the majority of parties representing the majority of voters don’t want to govern with them.
*A small disclaimer. I haven’t been involved in official party politics for over 8 years now — but I have served (proudly) as Kosovo’s Deputy Foreign Minister from 2010 to 2016 and a short stint as the Foreign Minister in 2016, on behalf of PDK.
