It is difficult to find a democratic country where the winner of 51 percent of the votes in the elections cannot hold power as happened to Vetëvendosje in Kosovo. For the third time in 18 months, he is going to parliamentary elections. And with this already Kosovar phenomenon, the country is waiting for elections every six months in the future as well. Thus, Kosovo remains acting. Such a status has both the prime minister and the speaker of the divided Assembly who exercises the office of the president. It is a coincidence that the EU has also failed to find a “unifying figure” for the head of the office in Kosovo and has announced the competition again. The EU office is headed by the “acting” as well. Even the US Embassy does not have a full-fledged ambassador, but an acting one. This should be taken into account by those who think that the EU and the USA should impose a solution on the Kosovars to get out of the deadlock.
Kosovo’s losses because it is going to the elections again will be many times greater than the approximately 10 million euros that the election process itself costs. A few weeks ago we reported in the newspaper that Kosovo “risks” losing 68.8 million euros of the EU from the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans until the end of June this year. After the failure of the election of the president and the announcement of new extraordinary elections, the word “at risk” can be removed, because it is now almost certain that he will lose these funds. And not only that, but the losses could be even greater if the obligations are not fulfilled in the deadlines for other means from the Growth Plan, which for Kosovo has an envelope of over 800 million euros. According to a table for monitoring the fulfillment of conditions from the Growth Plan, Kosovo has not fulfilled any of the 111 steps foreseen. So 0 out of 111 steps. Therefore, the risk of Kosovo losing large resources is great. If with a stable government Kosovo has fulfilled ZERO out of 111 steps, how can it fulfill them at a time when there is no Parliament, when the country is led by the incumbent government and the acting president. Due to the election processes, Kosovo waited a year and a half to receive the first payment from the Growth Plan, in the pre-financing form for which the only condition was the signing and ratification of the Agreement with the EU and the request for payment. And there is no more unconditional money from this package. Kosovo in this state or in this “derexhe” as the people say, cannot even fulfill the conditions.
All of this comes at a time when the unjust, senseless and harmful EU sanctions had just been lifted from Kosovo as a punitive measure through which almost half a billion euros had been blocked for almost three years. Since both the means from the Growth Plan and those from the Pre-accession Instruments (IPA) are limited in terms of time, Kosovo, even with institutional stability, would find it almost impossible to compensate for the lost time and use all the means available to it. And so the use of those tools now seems like an impossible mission. If you count these funds that Kosovo is already losing and is in danger of losing, then the 10 million euros that the elections cost is not even 1 percent of what can be lost as a result of institutional instability.
On the other hand, it must be accepted that everything that happens in Kosovo is in accordance with the laws and procedures. It is evidence that these procedures and laws are respected in Kosovo. Better this way than Kosovo being a place where one person decides everything. Stability where one person decides everything is only in authoritarian countries or dictatorships. And it is better to have this chaos in Kosovo than to have undemocratic stability.
But on the other hand, this situation in Kosovo proves the lack of democratic maturity and political responsibility for the fate of the state. This responsibility is also shown by making political compromises, building inter-party coalitions or even consensus for national interests. The political leaders in Kosovo did not prove this maturity and now they only try to pass the blame to each other for fear that the citizens will punish them in the elections for this immaturity shown.
It is difficult to find a democratic country where the winner of 51 percent of the votes in the elections cannot hold power as happened to Vetëvendosje in Kosovo. For the third time in 18 months, he is going to parliamentary elections. And with this already Kosovar phenomenon, the country is waiting for elections every six months in the future as well. Thus, Kosovo remains acting. Such a status has both the prime minister and the speaker of the divided Assembly who exercises the office of the president. It is a coincidence that the EU has also failed to find a “unifying figure” for the head of the office in Kosovo and has announced the competition again. The EU office is headed by the “acting” as well. Even the US Embassy does not have a full-fledged ambassador, but an acting one. This should be taken into account by those who think that the EU and the USA should impose a solution on the Kosovars to get out of the impasse.
The result of the elections in Kosovo has been able to surprise. Although the winner is known in most cases, the majority by which VV won in the last election was surprising. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the result this time. But the math is simple. If everyone will be against the VV and the VV against everyone even after these elections, then Kosovo will be without institutions, this time also without a president until the end of the year. And probably again in the elections in December, and then also in June of 2027, and so on. This, because in order to automatically take the country to the elections, a “blocking minority” of 41 deputies will be enough who will leave the hall and no one can elect the president, because there would not be the necessary quorum. It is difficult to expect that the VV will have more than 80 or less than 40 deputies in the future composition of the Assembly. Or it will take a “super coalition” with over 80 deputies in the Assembly to elect both the government and the president.
On the other hand, as the absolute winner of the last elections, the VV has proven that it has very little capacity for building coalitions. Neither the VV nor the opposition were sincere in the process of finding a way out of this situation, more precisely in the election of the president. Those who constantly said that “We don’t have votes for Vjosa Osmani”, criticizing him for being a “tool in the service of VV”, when it became clear that VV does not want him as president, started to support Osmani. On the other hand, the VV wanted to leave the impression that it is leaving it up to the opposition to propose the candidate, but it did not guarantee that that candidate would be elected.
Kosovo, whose independence more than 18 years ago was called “sui generis”, is now becoming a special case for the unfinished election cycles, which will leave it with “acting” with many consequences in a very unstable time in the world.
